Men finish fourth at Heps, women sixth

"As a team, Heps are what we look forward to," junior Cack Ferrell said. "It's the culminating meet for our team's season because it's the last time we will all be together."

In the final team contest of the season, both the men's and women's track teams failed to send the seniors out in a manner befitting their high expectations.

Held at Columbia's Wien Stadium this weekend, Heptagonals brought all of the Ivy League schools together. Princeton faced tough competition — especially from Cornell, which ran away from the field in both men's and women's events. The Tiger women came in sixth place with 54.5 points while the Big Red's women tallied 177.5 points. On the men's side, Princeton finished fourth with 95 points. The Tigers were just one point short of Penn's and Dartmouth's tie for second, but well behind Cornell's dominant 133-point total.

The Heps are a unique race because they are about group success. Teams get 10 points for each first place showing, eight points for second, six for third, four for fourth, two for fifth and one point for sixth place.

"The difference with Heps is that it's not about times, it's about being competitive with other schools," Ferrell said. "It really becomes a mind game as you try to conserve energy in preliminaries on Saturday but place so that you can compete on Sunday."

The weekend of competition began on Saturday with strong performances from the women. Senior Amy Krilla placed third in the javelin throw with a toss of 132 feet, four inches, and junior Meredith Mante finished fourth in the pole vault. The 10,000 meter race saw junior Meredith Lambert take fifth place.

Based on the Saturday performances, which left the team in seventh place, junior Juliette Poussot qualified for the 100m and 200m finals on Sunday, while Ferrell and sophomore Catha Mullen qualified for the 1,500m final.

"On Saturday night the outlook was pretty good despite our place," Ferrell said. "Some people had qualified for finals on Sunday that we weren't expecting, while some didn't make it through. It seemed optimistic even though we knew we weren't going to win."

Sunday's events saw solid third-place finishes from Ferrell in the 3,000m with a time of 9:53.49 and also from junior Molly Jones in the triple jump. Jones leapt 39'2.25" feet, two and one-quarter inches. Senior Chanel Lattimer notched a fourth-place finish in the 100m final in 11.98 seconds. Mullen ran the 1,500m in 4:32.59 to claim fourth, and senior Brooke Minor placed fifth in the high jump with a leap of 5'5".

"We weren't expecting to come in sixth," Ferrell said, "but we weren't expecting to come in first, either. Cornell, with its size, is able to do a ton of recruiting, and they have placed first in the past few years. Ideally we would've loved to have gotten second, as second and third place are up for grabs every year, but it wasn't in the cards for us this weekend."

Close call

After Saturday's events, the men's team was in first place with 42 points, seven ahead of Penn and 13 ahead of Dartmouth.

"I think we had an outside shot of taking it," senior Austin Smith said.

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Senior Drew Geant won the hammer throw event with a personal best toss of 177'4". Junior Frank McCreery placed second in the 10,000m run after leading the pack until the final seconds. Senior Dwaine Banton placed second in the long jump with a leap of 24'6.25", and sophomore pole vaulter Andrew Park jumped 16' for third place.

The Tigers had a good outlook for Sunday as freshman Will Byrd was in the lead in the decathlon after Saturday's five events. He finished second after Sunday's final round. Senior Mike Kopp and sophomores Justin Reed and Rich Stewart qualified for the 400m, while Banton qualified for the 100m, but not as many team members qualified for Sunday competition as the men were hoping.

The 4x400 relay team of Kopp, Reed, Stewart and sophomore Brian Shields placed third in their event, and junior Eric Beights placed fifth in the steeplechase. In field events, junior Josh Probst threw the javelin 204'7" for fourth place, and senior high jumper Mike Weishuhn placed second in his event with a clear of 6'10.75".

The highlight of Sunday's events was Smith's win in the 5,000m run. He finished the race in 14:30.90 with five other competitors hot on his tail. They finished the race within six seconds of Smith's time.

"The 5,000m race was hotly contested because it never got that quick, so a lot of guys were in contention for it," Smith said. "Because the pace wasn't all that fast to begin with and because I was fresh, I was able to pass the first, second and third runners in the last quarter mile."

The team was in a tight race for second place, but it came up one point short. This weekend's performance was similar to last year's Heps, where the Tigers were in first place after Saturday and then dropped down to third place after Sunday's events.

"Cornell is a really deep team and tough to beat, but had we been firing all our cylinders, we could've taken it," Smith said. "It was disappointing."

Despite a less-than-satisfying result from this weekend, the team is looking forward to the upcoming IC4As hosted at Princeton this weekend to allow competitors to qualify for the more important Regionals and Nationals.