Senior Stars Lead M., W. Track at Heptagonals

At the Outdoor Heptagonal Championships at Princeton this weekend, the Harvard women's track team scored 121 points, a full 26-point improvement over last year's third-place finish.

Yet when the final tallies were announced, the women found themselves in third place again, behind two familiar rivals. Brown scored 132 points to win the meet for the fourth year in a row, while Yale tallied 127 to take second place in an exceptionally close meet that came down to the final events.

The eleven-point difference between Harvard and Brown was the closest the Crimson had come to the Bears at Outdoor Heps since 1995. A victory could have been well within Harvard's grasp had a few more results swung its way down the stretch.

The defeat to Yale came as a surprise, considering that the Crimson had humiliated the Elis, 104-50, at their annual dual meet just two weeks before. It was also the first time Yale had beaten Harvard at Outdoor Heps since 1988.

The meet marked the end of an era for Ivy track, as it was the last time that twins and respective team co-captains Brenda Taylor of Harvard and Lindsay Taylor of Brown would face off. The end result was familiar from Indoor Heps in February. Brenda took home the Athlete of the Meet trophy, while Lindsay took home the championship trophy.

The Taylor twins tallied 88 points combined in individual events and relays, and each won two individual titles and one relay.

Brenda Taylor beat out her sister to win the 100-meter dash for the second year in a row. She also won her third consecutive 100-meter high hurdles title in a meet and school-record time of 13.56 seconds in the preliminaries. Sophomore Alayna Miller also placed sixth in the 100-meter hurdles.

Taylor's only individual defeat on the day came in the 200-meter dash. Cornell's Katy Jay, who had come close to beating Taylor in previous sprints, came through this time to win her first individual Heptagonal title.

Taylor, who ran the fastest time in the nation in the 400-meter intermediate hurdles at 56.11 seconds at the Penn Relays last week, did not compete in the event at Heps, and left the door open for sophomore Amanda Shanklin to win her first individual Heptagonal title. Shanklin came close to winning for the Crimson, as she clocked in at a meet-best time of 1:01.67 in the preliminaries. But she could not duplicate her performance in the event's final, where she placed fourth.

Yesterday was also the final Heptagonal meet in the outstanding careers of senior Dora Gyorffy and co-captain Marna Schutte. Both earned their fourth consecutive individual in their respective feature events, Gyorffy in the high jump and Schutte in the 400-meter dash.

Schutte won the 400 in 55.26 seconds and also placed fifth in the 200. By winning four consecutive 400 titles, she matched the feat of two-time Olympian Meredith Rainey `90.

Gyorffy won the high jump at a height of 1.90 meters, a few centimeters short of the meet record she set her freshman year, yet far better than any other collegiate high jumper has performed this season. Sophomore Kart Siilats, who won the NCAA Indoor Championship in March, placed second with a height of 1.74 meters.

Gyorffy also won the triple jump for the third season in a row with a jump of 13.05 meters, her best career performance at Outdoor Heps. Sophomore Helena Ronner finished third in the event with a 12.46 meter-effort. Ronner also came close to placing in the long jump, which was won by Lindsay Taylor, but came a few centimeters short.

The Crimson's remaining first-place finish came in the mile relay, which closed out the meet. The team of junior Carrie McGraw, Taylor, Shanklin and Schutte won comfortably with a time of 3:44.37.

McGraw also placed fifth in the 400 earlier in the day.

The 4x100 relay team, came up just short of a victory, placing second behind Brown. The team of Miller, Brenda Taylor, McGraw, and Schutte finished a half-second behind the Brown team which was anchored by Lindsay Taylor.

Freshman Sandra Venghaus placed fifth in the heptathlon, which was also won by Lindsay Taylor.

In the middle and long distances, sophomore Melissa Turner was the lone Crimson runner to place, taking sixth at 37:20.29. Sophomore Ashley Furst was a finalist in the 400, placed sixth in the 800-meter run and anchored the 4x800 relay team which also included juniors Samantha Piper and Leann Hymas, and freshman Beverly Whelan.

The highlight among the Crimson throws came from freshman Johanna Doyle, who placed second in the hammer throw at 51.84 meters-a full three-meter improvement from her performance the week before and just two centimeters better than the third-place competitor. Her points, along with a fifth-place finish from sophomore Bryce Weed in the pole vault, were the Crimson's first points of the meet to start off Saturday morning.

Junior Nicky Grant placed fifth in the hammer throw and sixth in the shot put. Her throws of 49.66 meters and 13.16 meters, respectively, were good enough to score points for the team, but short of what she had achieved in the weeks leading up to Heps.

The Crimson did manage to score points in all of the throwing events, as freshman Alexandra Petrone placed fifth in the javelin at 39.76 meters, and freshman Breeanna Gibson finished fifth in the discus at 41.18 meters.