Men's track falls to UConn, Penn State at Princeton Invite

The men's track team had a strong showing in a tri-meet against Penn State and Connecticut. Although the Tigers placed third with 112 points, compared to 112.5 for Penn St. and 136.5 for UConn, the team had several strong individual performances.

The Tigers won five events, including both throwing events, with junior Paul Lyons winning the shot put and senior Joshua McCaughey winning the 35-lb. weight throw. Lyons' final distance of 16.95 meters was over one-half meter better than the second-place throw. McCaughey's final throw of 20.47 m. was more than two meters better than the second-place throw, and he set a provisional qualifying mark for the NCAA championships, which will be held March 12-13 in Fayetteville, Ark.

"I was quite pleased with my performance this weekend," Mc-Caughey said. "Last year I had a very disappointing indoor season and it's nice to get back to throwing far. Hopefully I can throw even farther and go to Nationals."

The Tigers also had a strong performance from sophomore John Basler. Basler won the mile run by two seconds with a time of 4 minutes, 13.85 seconds.

"It feels good to be improving and running some competitive times," Basler said. "Saturday was my second indoor mile race because I was injured through all of the indoor and outdoor seasons last year. The hard training I put in over the past couple of years is finally starting to pay off."

Princeton also won both 4x400 m. relay races and did well in the 800 m. run. In this race, seniors Jonathan Kieliszak and Robert Hulick placed second and third, respectively.

In the end, however, Princeton proved unable to overcome either UConn or Penn St. The Huskies won 11 events, while Princeon fell just one half point short of the Nittany Lions. Head coach Fred Samara, however, called the meet "a good team effort for us, especially since we didn't run a number of our top guys, which would have turned the meet around for us."

Next up for the Tigers is the National Open Meet at Penn St. next Saturday.

The women's track team had a meet at Penn State where they ran against both the Nittany Lions and Penn. Princeton scored 86 points in the meet to place second behind Penn St. with 141 points. The Tigers beat Penn, which placed third with 79 points.

Princeton dominated the mile run as senior Emily Kroshus placed first with a time of 4:50.06. Sophomore Cack Ferrell came in right behind her at 4:50.47 to take second.

The Tigers also did very well in the 800 m. run, which Kroshus described as the "highlight of the weekend." The Tigers were led in this event by junior Carrie Strickland, who came in second with a time of 2:12.01.

Junior Chanel Lattimer won the 200 m. dash in 25.16 seconds, and sophomore Meredith Lambert pulled out a win in the 3000 m. run with a time of 9:39.15.

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"My goal for this race was not to run a personal best but instead to work on my finishing kick, which is usually not very strong," Lambert said. "By racing at a conservative pace for the majority of the race, I was able to feel comfortable enough at the end to run a stronger finish."

Despite their efforts, the Tigers were unable to overcome Penn St., who placed first in 13 events and won every field event. Princeton, however, was missing several players due to injury.

The Tigers will face off against Harvard and Yale next Saturday.