Both men's and women's track and field look to get back to the top

Men’s Preview

This year, as the men’s track and field team finishes their indoor season and enters the outdoor, they hope to reclaim the Ivy League Championship titles from Cornell in each. Prior to last year, the Princeton men had won three consecutive titles in outdoor and four consecutive in indoor competition.

However, last spring, despite a strong Heptagonal showing, they fell to Cornell in both indoor and outdoor. The spring outdoor championship was especially close and was decided by a devastatingly few 6.66 points. This season, they aim to win back these titles in both fields.

“Every year we go for the Triple Crown, so we hope to win indoor and outdoor,” senior captain Tommy Scott said. “We already won cross country this year,” senior captain Scott Rushton added.

The team’s indoor season has been strong thus far, most recently culminating in a win against Harvard and Yale at the annual Harvard-Yale-Princeton meet in Cambridge on Feb. 14.

“We’ve won this meet 24 years in a row,” head coach Fred Samara said.

The indoor Heptagonal Ivy League Championship will take place Feb. 28-March 1 at Harvard’s facilities. From there, the team will soon transition into the spring season, beginning with a spring break training trip in Orlando, Fla. Afterward, the Tigers will return home for the Sam Howell Invitational on the first weekend of April.

According to Samara, every meet in the spring season is important.

“We have a dual goal of winning the league meet but also trying to get into the NCAA regional meet and hopefully having a number of guys go on the NCAA final. It’s pretty exciting to do that,” Samara said.

Junior captain Greg Caldwell says that maintaining focus and drive throughout the season can be challenging.

“As a team overall, it can be a challenge to stay consistent throughout the season, not dropping off,” Caldwell said.

“That’s the difficult nature of track and field and cross country,” Samara explained. “The main criterion is to keep them healthy for so long. A second criteria is to keep them motivated.”

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On a positive note, Samara remarks that this year’s freshmen have stepped up to fill some of the gaps left by the graduation of last year’s senior class.

“We’re doing a lot of exciting things already,” Samara noted. “Sometimes it’s hard to rely on freshman as they’re new to collegiate sports and they’re away from home, etcetera, but so far the freshmen have been outstanding on our team.”

Women’s Preview

The women’s team hopes to fight through tough competition to win both the indoor and outdoor track Ivy League titles, last theirs in 2011 for both seasons. The Tigers placed fifth at last year’s outdoor championships.

However, this year the team hopes to challenge opposition, showing strong performances in the indoor season thus far. Most recently, the team enjoyed a victory against Harvard and Yale at the annual Harvard-Yale-Princeton meet hosted in Cambridge on Feb. 14.

“We had some really noteworthy performances, which bodes really well for two weeks at the Ivy League,” head coach Peter Farrell said. “One of the advantages of having HYP at Harvard this year is we got to see their facilities, their track, their runways, two weeks before the big meet.”

After the upcoming indoor Heptagonal championships, the team will ease into the outdoor season with a spring break training trip in Orlando.

“I think people enjoy the outdoor season more, so I think people are really excited to get outdoors and onto the bigger track,” junior captain Julia Ratcliffe said. “The indoor track is only 200 meters, and the outdoor track is 400 meters, so everything indoors is tighter and more confined.”

The main challenges that Farrell and Ratcliffe identify include weather, health and strategizing placement of players across a range of events.

“The problem with spring track is weather,” Farrell said “The league meet is the first or second weekend of May, and you have all of April to get ready for it, but all of April isn’t really that nice in New Jersey. We hope to get the right weather situations.”

“I think staying healthy is definitely always a challenge. We have a lot of girls competing across a wide range of events, so definitely balancing the training across those events [is a challenge], and putting girls into their strongest events and get the most points,” Ratcliffe added.

Despite these potential difficulties, the team remains excited to compete outdoors with everything they have.

“Having seen the girls really push their hearts out of the season has really inspired me to give my all,” Ratcliffe said. “There’s only a few throwing events in the indoor track, and seeing girls really step up from previous years has made me really excited to see what they can put together on the field when they can really compete.”

“I’m looking forward to seeing what we can do with the work that we’ve put in this year,” she noted.