Women's Track and Field Takes First at Heps, Men Place Third

Harvard has another banner to raise as the women’s track and field team took the top spot at this weekend’s Heptagonal Invitational, making the Crimson Ivy League Champions for the second year in a row. With the men’s third place finish, Harvard earned the right to call itself the top combined track and field program in the Ivy League.

“This was probably the highest energy meet we’ve been to so far because we are all so close and it was really anyone’s game, “ freshman Nikki Okwelogu said.

Both the men and women’s programs posted personal highs in point totals. The men earned 95 points during the two days of competition, its highest Heps point total since 1985. Meanwhile, the women earned 122 points, the most in program history.

The Crimson women beat out host school Dartmouth, who finished in second with 105 points, followed by Columbia in third with 95 points. The men fell third behind title winner Cornell (145 points) and second-place Princeton (117 points).

“I was thrilled,” coach Jason Saretsky said. “I thought our men and women competed fantastically. I was really proud of their efforts. It was by far the best performance this program has seen in a long, long time.”

It was Harvard’s depth that kept it in contention all weekend. Despite the fact the women grabbed the top spot in only four events, compared to runner-up Dartmouth’s seven first place finishes, the Crimson still defeated the Big Green by 20 points. Overall, Darmouth had 11 scorers register a point in track events, while Harvard had 15 to take the edge. In the field, the Big Green had only four point scorers compared to the Crimson’s five.

“Every point matters. Every point adds up,” Saretsky said. “It can be the difference, and we just had a really fantastic meet.”

The records continued to fall for the women, as they have all season. Junior Danielle Barbian was leading the charge as she competed in the 60-meter dash on Saturday and Sunday. In the first day of competition on Saturday, she matched the Ivy League record and broke her own school record with a time of 7.45 seconds in the preliminary heats. Then on Sunday, she bested her own time and claimed sole possession of the Ivy League record with a time of 7.44 seconds.

Sophomore Autumne Franklin was a repeat victor in the 60-meter hurdle event. Though she failed to match her record set in her rookie season, Franklin was just 0.06 seconds off her meet best time.

Harvard showed off its strength in the field with the strong performances of senior captain Adabelle Ekechukwu and Okwelogu. The duo alone outscored the entire Dartmouth field team across the two days of competition.

Ekechukwu was named Most Outstanding Performer in the field after her performance in the weight throw, which she won with a distance of 20.81 meters, just 0.02 meters behind her own All-Time Ivy record, set in 2013.

“She’s just the best, “ Okwelogu said. “I was struggling at practice a few days before the meet… she really came up to me and gave me that last bit of ‘you can do this’ push. She just believes on every single person on the team… She’s one of us here to help whenever we need it.”

Okwelogu competed in the shot put, taking the top spot on the podium with a throw of 15.31. The toss made the rookie the first Crimson thrower to win the event since 1992 and the her score broke the Harvad shot put record set in 1991.

On the men’s side, it was the 5K event that proved most exciting as Harvard’s senior duo of James Leakos and Maks Korolev crossed the finish line in the gold and silver positions. Leakos just beat out Korolev by 0.16 seconds with a time of 13 minutes, 58.67 seconds. Korolev currently holds the school record in the 5K, with Leakos holding on to the second spot all-time.

The men also claimed the second and third spots in the 60m dash, with senior Damani Wilson beating out teammate senior Andrew Ezekoye for silver.

In the field, the Harvard men showed their depth in the weight throw, as junior Ben Glauser, freshman Josh Whitener, and senior Dustin Brode took second, third, and fourth respectively. The trio contributed 16 points for the Crimson in the event. Brode also finished second in the shot put with a personal best distance, and Freshman Andrew Roney was fifth in the pole vault to contribute to Harvard’s point total.

The teams return to competition next week in Boston with the ECAC and IC4A Championships.

—Staff writer Theresa C. Hebert can be reached at thebert@college.harvard.edu.