The men's and women's track and field teams begin a continuous stretch of meets this weekend that sees them competing every weekend from now through June 14.
The Sam Howell Invitational starts things off this weekend. Competition at the meet should not be overly strenuous, as the invited schools are largely small New Jersey and regional colleges.
The character of the season is altered this year with the change of national qualification to a regional format. In all past years, individuals qualified for the national championship by recording a fast time or good mark — competitors were picked directly from a descending order list.
The result was that the big-budget programs could fly their athletes to time trial-like races. Head-to-head competition had become severely de-emphasized.
Further, athletes could record their fast time at the beginning of the season and be selected to the championship regardless of whether or not they are in championship form at the end of the season. As a remedy, beginning this year, the country has been divided into four regions, with Princeton falling in the middle of the region stretching along the East Coast. Athletes must meet a standard (similar to IC4A and Eastern College Athletic Conference qualifying times) to compete in that meet. The top five places in each region will qualify automatically for the national championship to be held one week later in Sacramento, Calif..
Only the 10,000 meters and the heptathalon/decathalon — events too grueling to be contested in two consecutive weekends — have retained the old time-based qualification. For Princeton, this means a conservative approach to competition at the beginning of the season, as it is imperative to be peaking come May 30.
Heading outdoors
Individual qualification considerations aside, the transition to outdoors looks to benefit the Tigers as they approach the team-scored Heptagonal championships. This is because of the additions of the 400m hurdles, the steeplechase, the javelin, and the discus.
Junior Hasina Outtz, the runner-up indoors in the 60m hurdles is the defending champion over the long hurdles. In the first meet of the season at UC-Irvine, Outtz surpassed the regional qualifying standard.
Cross-country standout junor Laura Petrillo looks to score big points for Princeton in the steeplechase.
"She has incredible steeple form," head coach Peter Farrell said.
Petrillo defeated defending Heptagonal champion, Carlan Gray of Cornell, at the UC-Irvine meet earlier this month, and was tantalizingly close to the school record of 11 minutes, eight seconds, held by senior Laura Shackleton.
The women look to record fast times in the 800m and 1500m, with 800m specialists sophomore Carrie Strickland and freshman Diane Heiser running the metric mile. Freshman Cack Ferrell, one of the league's top milers, steps down to the 800m to work on her speed.
Junior Betsy Kennedy and senior Rachel Rosemeyer look to score significant points for the Tigers throughout the season in the throws. Kennedy was victorious in the javelin at UC-Irvine.
"We both are aiming to throw over 40 feet in the weight throw this weekend," Rosemeyer said.
On the men's side, junior Tim Releford looks to continue his assault on the school record in the javelin throw following his regional qualifying mark in Myrtle Beach. Juniors Josh McCaughey and Mark Smith will compete in the hammer throw after spending the winter tossing the 35lb weight.
"While we look to throw well on Saturday, we are approaching it more as practice than intense competition," Smith said.
Friday night, junior Jon Kieleszak and senior Jon Bell are aiming for a sub 14:10 5k. Junior Tristan Colangelo will bear the brunt of the pacing duties, rabitting his teammates for a portion of the race. Juniors Jeff DiChiara and Dave Silver will lap the track 25 times for the last race of the night in the 10km event. National qualifier, senior Mike Baird, will not race this weekend.
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