Senior Alex Pessala set the tone of the meet Saturday afternoon, continuing his streak of dominating performances in the hammer throw. Pessala won the event for the fourth consecutive year, posting the best mark in the event since 1987. His 64.42 meters (211-4) stands as the third-best all-time mark in the event. Pessala is only the second Tiger to become a four-time champion in the hammer throw.
Sophomore Craig Pearce finished second in the hammer throw for the second time in two years with a mark of 56.89m (186-08).
The Princeton pole-vaulters also turned in an impressive performance Saturday, picking up 11 points with third, fourth and sixth place finishes. Freshmen Donn Cabral and Brian Leung performed well in the 10,000m, placing third and fifth, respectively.
While the Tigers qualified eight going into the second day of competition and held a four-point lead over Cornell, they had their work cut out for them as the Big Red came into Sunday’s competition with 13 qualifiers.
Kicking off the final day of competition was junior Eric Plummer, who ousted Brown’s Bryan Powlen and company to clinch the shot put with a 57-feet, nine-inch throw.
Senior Michael Maag, who has led the Tigers in distance events for the past four years, picked up a Heps championship in the 1,500m event, recording a time of three minutes, 49.16 seconds. Maag later pulled ahead of Harvard’s Dan Chenoweth in the 5,000m to clinch his second championship of the meet with a time of 14:26.22.
Sophomore Mike Eddy led the sprinters with a blistering performance in the 400m, pulling away in the last 100 meters to win with a time of 46.92 seconds.Freshman Austin Hollimon claimed the title in the 200m dash with a time of 21.21 seconds, out-sprinting Cornell’s Nathan Crabtree.
The Tiger foursome of senior Ian Thomson, junior Brian Li-A-Ping, Hollimon and Eddy turned in a meet record in the 4x400m relay, clocking in a 3:10.07 and surpassing the previous mark of 3:10.37 set by Penn in 2002.
The women’s team came into Sunday’s events ranked fifth but ready to take control of the meet.
“The thing to remember is that this meet is really about the team, and a lot of the meets that are left are about individuals. The best thing about this weekend was that people directed themselves for the team,” junior Reilly Kiernan said. Kiernan is also an associate editor for news for The Daily Princetonian.
It was the mid-distance group that led the Tigers on Saturday, as senior Agatha Offorjebe turned in one of the best performances of the meet and a personal best in the 400-meter dash. She clocked in at 54.38, finishing second in the 400m preliminaries and qualifying for the NCAA Regional.
The distance corps also had an impressive performance Saturday, sweeping first through fourth in the 10,000m. Sophomore Sarah Cummings, who placed in three events, exploded in the last lap to out-sprint Kiernan, who had been ahead for the majority of the race. Cummings won in a 35:56.85, followed by Kiernan’s 36:05.16, while junior Alexa Glencer and defending 10,000m-champion senior Jolee VanLeuven finished third and fourth, respectively.
Offorjebe continued her dominant performance Sunday, clinching the 200m dash with a last-second burst for a 24.09-second finish that was just enough to edge past Columbia’s Sharay Hale.
Junior All-American Liz Costello clinched another Heps championship in the 3,000m, finishing with a time of 9:45.36. Cummings and sophomore Ashley Higginson came close behind, placing third and fourth, respectively. Costello also finished second in the mile in a time of 4:27.46.
In a testament to the depth of the distance corps, the Tigers finished second through fourth in the 5,000m, with Cummings finishing second, freshman Alex Banfich placing third and Kiernan coming in fourth.
Higginson won the 3,000-meter Steeplechase by an overwhelming margin, finishing in 10:24.98, more than seven seconds ahead of the rest of the field.
Both teams will now look forward to the upcoming NCAA championships.
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