Track & Field: Princeton continues solid form, HYP looms

While the Northeast was paralyzed by a devastating snowstorm this weekend, the men’s and women’s track and field teams managed to avoid most of its ill effects to register a series of confident performances in nationally attended meets.

The men continued their dominant season by winning the Sykes-Sabock Challenge Cup at Penn State, their third first-place finish in scored meets this year. The team, which received top ranking in the Mid-Atlantic region last week, scored 107 points in the meet, finishing well ahead of athletic powerhouse and runner-up Penn State, who had 83 points, and Ivy League rival Cornell, who had 80 points.

Sophomore Austin Hollimon set a personal record in the 400m by six tenths of a second, winning his event in 47.03 seconds. His time, which meets NCAA provisional standards, guarantees him a place in nationals at the end of the indoor season. Hollimon, who has won every race he has entered this year, overcame two tactically adroit Cornell runners trying to take advantage of the small track, winning the race by more than one second.

“Cornell has some of the best tactics and competitors in the country,” he said. “There were two races in this race: the race to get the inside lane and the race after that. It was hard to make a pass, but I barely snuck past the Cornell kid at the end of the first lap and accelerated through the turn after that.”

Hollimon attributes his success this year to an unorthodox training regime.

“I do a unique combination of training,” he said. “I do a little bit of hurdles, a little jumping, and I don’t run too much. But when I do, it’s intense.”

Elsewhere, in the distance events, junior Kyle Soloff won his second mile of the season, finishing thousandths of a second ahead of sophomore Donn Cabral in 4:08.28.

“It was great having both Donn and [freshman] Nathan [Mathabane] in the race,” he said. “Nathan helped push me early on, and Donn really made me run my hardest to get the win. He passed me with 150 meters to go, and then in the last 50 meters I gradually pulled up on him until I caught him right at the line.”

Fellow distance runner sophomore Max Kaulbach won the 5,000m in 14:34.75, while freshmen Peter Callahan and Russell Dinkins took first and second in the 800m, running 1:51.46 and 1:51.55, respectively.

Kaulbach said he believes that the team’s successes in this meet, including the victory over Cornell, are a sign of things to come.

“The team this year is not just a few stars bound together by our uniform, but a real team that values and strives for every point, whether it be a first or a fifth [place finish],” he said in an e-mail.

The women’s team took eighth place in the Sykes-Sabock Challenge Cup with a divided squad. Freshman Tory Worthen continued her successful inaugural campaign by winning the pole vault in 3.97 meters.

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“It was my biggest meet so far, and there were a lot of good competitors,” Worthen said. “It’s very exciting, but I still have goals that I haven’t reached yet ... I know I have to keep training and stay focused in order to reach these goals. That’s exactly what I plan to do.”

In the throwing events, junior Thanithia Billings finished third in the weight throw, throwing 17.40 meters, shattering her previous personal record of 16.28m. Billings, who has struggled with injuries all year, said she believes she is finally ready to compete at her “highest capability.”

“This season has been filled with little, nagging injuries that have left me not competing at a level that I feel is my highest capability,” she said in an e-mail.

The rest of the squad competed in the New Balance Collegiate Invitational in New York City, where freshman Laura Zumbach took ninth in the 3,000m eastern division race finishing in 10:27.97.

Next Saturday, both teams will face Harvard and Yale in the annual Harvard-Yale-Princeton meet at Jadwin Gymnasium.

“The meet against Harvard and Yale is going to be fun,” Soloff said. “It will be great preparation for Heps, and I’m confident we’ll be able to get the win as a team.”