Track & Field: Men finish second, women fourth at Heps

While the Cornell men’s track program made history this weekend by becoming the first program to win eight straight Heptagonal Championships, the Princeton men put up a valiant fight with five key first-place finishes. Freshman Conor McCullough set a new Heps record in the hammer throw, sophomore Donn Cabral won the 10,000m run with an impressive time of 29 minutes, 51.71 seconds and the 3,000m steeplechase in 8:54.55, junior co-captain Mike Eddy ran the 400m dash in 47.26 seconds, and senior Eric Plummer threw 18.3 meters in the shot put.

In the first event of the meet, McCullough threw the hammer 70.37 meters, besting the previous record of 68.32 meters set in 1987 by Yale’s Jim Driscoll. Junior Craig Pearce took second place in the event with a throw of 60.76 meters.

Cabral’s win in the 3,000m steeplechase at Heps followed his first-place finish in that event at the Penn Relays two weeks ago, but he has had far less experience this season in the 10,000m race.

“It was a great experience running the 10k on Saturday because it was my first [10k race] all season [and] my first individual Ivy League title,” Cabral said. “I executed my race plan exactly as I would have liked.”

Though it was Cabral’s first meet this year running the 10,000m, he cited similarities between the 10,000m and the 3,000m steeplechase that helped him go into both races with confidence.

“Running the steeplechase doesn’t feel too different from running a 10k, because even though the 3k steeplechase is a shorter race, the hurdles add a lot of fatigue to your legs, so [the steeplechase] tends to run at a pace similar to the 10k,” Cabral explained.

After posting the best time in preliminaries, junior Mark Amirault came in second place in the 1,500m run with a time of 3:57.01, contributing eight points to Princeton’s team total.

The Princeton 4x400m relay team of freshman Russell Dinkins, sophomore Ricky Kearney, senior Brian Li-A-Ping and junior Mike Eddy took second place with a time of 3:13.42.

Princeton dominated the high jump, with senior Justin Frick clearing 2.16 meters and senior Ian Fox clearing 2.08 meters to finish first and second, respectively.

In the discus throw, the Princeton men took home second, third and fourth places for a total of 18 points. McCullough took second with a throw of 51.22 meters, junior George Abyad third with 50.55 meters and senior Joel Karacozoff fourth with 49.98 meters.

Junior Adam Thayer, sophomore Ivan Charbonneau and freshman Sebastian Steffen each added two points to the team total with fifth-place finishes in the 110m hurdles, the 100m dash and the 200m dash, respectively. Thayer clocked in at 15.14 seconds, Charbonneau in 10.95 seconds, and Steffen in 21.93 seconds.

The defending-champion Princeton women finished Saturday in first place, paced by two individual first-place finishes from junior Sarah Cummings in the 10,000m run and freshman Tory Worthen in the pole vault. In the final event of the day, Cummings ran to a first-place finish for the second straight year with a time of 35:03.79. She was joined on the podium by senior Alexa Glencer who took third place, also for the second year in a row, with a time of 35:57.48 and senior Reilly Kiernan who finished in sixth place with a time of 36:20.35. Worthen posted her best mark of the outdoor season in the pole vault when she cleared 4.00 meters. Kiernan is a former associate editor for news, and Worthen is a staff writer, for The Daily Princetonian.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

Worthen said she was pleased with her performance at Heps. “Not only am I happy for myself, but I know I contributed as much as I can to my team, which is the most important part of Heps,” she said.

“Heps is like no other meet,” Worthen explained. “Once we’re at the meet ... we all remember that this sport isn’t about just one person at all. I love how hard our team works and comes together to contribute to the team score, whether it’s by competing or cheering on our teammates.”

The Princeton women earned the top two finishes in the 3,000m steeplechase event as junior Ashley Higginson cruised to a first-place finish with a time of 10:20.53, and freshman Melissa Newbery crossed the finish line just less than 8 seconds later. Newbery is also a staff writer for the ‘Prince.’

The 4x800m relay team of freshman Greta Feldman, freshman Alexis Mikaelian, junior Brooke Russell and junior Libby Bliss took second with a time of 8:56.39.

Juniors Emma Ruggiero and Thanithia Billings both recorded new personal bests in the hammer throw, throwing 58.83 and 54.62 meters, respectively, for second and third place.

Sophomore Eileen Moran finished in third place in both the 100m dash and the 200m dash, with times of 11.89 seconds and 24.14 seconds, respectively. Mikaelian clocked in at 4:36.08 in the 1,500m run, good enough for fourth place and four points toward the team total.

The women had an opportunity this year to win the league’s triple crown, after winning the Ivy League cross-country championship and the indoor Heptagonal Championships earlier this year. In first place at the end of Saturday, the women fell to fourth place by the end of the meet on Sunday.