W. track falters at H-Y-P, finishing last at tri-meet

A somewhat humdrum season became even more so last weekend as the Princeton women's indoor track team suffered a discouraging loss to both Harvard and Yale at the annual H-Y-P meet.

Harvard won the competition, held at Cambridge, with 61 points. Yale finished a close second with 60 points. Princeton finished far behind its perennial rivals with 38 points.

What's most discouraging about all of this is that the team is not bad at all. In fact, they're pretty good, and they have a lot of talent in key events. Things just never seem to come together at the same time, unfortunately.

Only one Tiger won her race, junior Hasina Outtz. Outtz took the 60 meter hurdles against the Harvard and Yale runners, but that effort alone wasn't enough to pull the Princeton team into contention for the top position.

"Everyone still did well," sophomore Jen Byrd said. "I don't know really, but hopefully we'll still pick it up. A lot of our top athletes didn't travel."

Outtz is one of many talented juniors on the team, and so in a sense this weekend's results can largely be seen as an aberration, a smudge on the normally clean white linen of the Princeton women's team record.

But still, at a time where the Tigers hope to be hitting their proverbial (and literal) stride in preparation for the Heptagonal Championships, there are distressingly few ways to take last weekend's performance as anything but an ill omen.

"We're a little disappointed that we didn't do as well against the other Ivy League teams," Byrd said. "We should do a lot better once the whole team gets back together."

So indoor track fans should not lose heart, for all is not yet lost. There were several other notable individual efforts at H-Y-Ps. Both junior Liz Morse and Byrd notched second place finishes in their events, the 400m and high jump, respectively.

Another junior, Betsy Kennedy, placed third in two events by scoring with a 39 4 1/2 toss in the shot put and a 52-6.5 volley in the weight throw. Kennedy has consistently turned in strong performances throughout the season, and last weekend proved no exception.

Freshman Molly Jones also placed third in two events, earning two points in the triple jump, 37-1.5, and tying teammate and classmate Alison Brawner in the high jump with a leap of 5-1.

And in an interestingly unusual turn of events, the Tigers also placed third and fourth in four separate events throughout the afternoon's activities.

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Junior Emily Kroshus and freshman Meredith Lambert did so in the 3000m run, and sophomore Carrie Strickland and freshman Jordan Wagenseller mimicked their feat in the 800m. Furthermore, sophomore Leslie Warren and Morse finished three-four in the 200m dash, and sophomore Christi Niehans and junior Dalia Bach did the same in the pole vault to round out the quartet of three-four finishes.

"I guess that's just how it ended up," Byrd said. "They would have preferred to have one-two finishes but sometimes that happens."

And since interesting does not translate into Heps-winning, the Princeton women will be training all the harder over the next two weeks to try to peak in time for Heptagonals, which take place over the first weekend in March. The team placed third in last year's indoor Heptagonals, and looks to equal or better that mark this season.

Though last weekend in Cambridge may not have turned out so well, they have every right to be optimistic about their chances to perform well then. Though outright victory might prove difficult to achieve, the Tigers are not letting the magnitude of the potential task deter them from putting forth the effort.

"We're looking to go out and win it, as always," Byrd said. "But a lot of it will come down to how the other teams perform, and the point distributions. We'll turn in around, I know we will."

Princeton runs in one last meet before Heps next weekend at the Princeton Invitational in Lawrenceville.