Track Teams Fare Well at Millrose Games, Harvard Select

This past weekend, not a day went by without a Crimson track athlete involved in high-profile action.

On Friday, superstar high-jumper Dora Gyorffy and the Harvard 4x400 relay team took a trip to Madison Square Garden to compete in the Millrose Games, the nation's oldest invitational track meet. The meet was aired on network television on Saturday afternoon.

Then on Saturday, the Crimson hosted the Harvard Select Meet at the Gordon Track Center. Competing against Harvard at the individual-only meet were athletes from Northeastern, Boston College, and the Central Mass. Striders, a local club team. Despite missing some of its top athletes, the Harvard women's team put forth a solid effort, winning nine of the 15 events of the day, while the men's team managed to come up with three individual victories.

To cap off the weekend, captain Brenda Taylor and junior Ed Baker headed to the Reggie Lewis Track Center to compete at the New Balance Invitational on Sunday afternoon. Results were not available at press time.

Millrose Games

As one of the nation's top collegiate high jumpers, junior Dora Gyroffy doesn't normally have to face much competition during the indoor track season. But at the Millrose Games, Gyroffy was matched up against some up the best professional athletes in the United States.

Gyorffy was able to force a showdown between herself and Nike-sponsored Tisha Waller. Both cleared 1.89 meters, the same height that Gyorffy jumped to finish second at the NCAA Indoors last year. Neither was able to clear the next height, and because Waller cleared the previous bar in fewer attempts, Waller was named the winner, while Gyroffy was left with another second-place finish.

The women's 4x400 relay team, competing against Army, Princeton, Duke and St. John's, managed to pull off an exciting victory in its heat.

Sophomore Carrie McGraw started off the race for the Crimson.

"It wasn't a traditional start, because it was a 160 meter track instead of a 200 meter track--we had to do two-and-a-half laps," McGraw said. "At the start there were no blocks, so we had to break right away. I had to fight a lot of people off, because the curves were so tight."

McGraw managed to keep close to the lead runner from St. John's, despite the unusual conditions.

"The track was hard to run, because it was banked much more than the one we're used to," McGraw said.

The second and third legs of the relay were run by Taylor and freshman Amanda Shanklin. When the baton was handed off to anchor Marna Schutte, the Crimson still lagged behind the Red Storm.

But Schutte passed the St. John's anchor on the final lap, and held on for the victory. Harvard won the heat with a time of 3:51.17, while St. John's finished at 3:52.06.

Though the Crimson relay team was competing in a lower-level heat, Harvard would still have finished third in the higher-level heat behind South Carolina and Seton Hall.

Still, the Crimson athletes were thrilled to be competing on the same track as such great athletes as current 100-meter and 200-meter champion Maurice Greene, who broke a Madison Square Garden record in the 60-meter dash on the same day.

"There were all sorts of professional athletes there," McGraw said. "Watching them compete was amazing."

Harvard Select Meet

Of the five athletes who competed at the Millrose Games, all except Gyroffy and Taylor managed to make it back to compete at the Harvard Select Meet.

"The people who competed at Millrose had three-and-a-half hours of sleep coming back, so we didn't run as well as we could have," McGraw said.

The fact that Harvard didn't have its best team on the track didn't matter much, as the meet didn't count team standings.

"We were trying to take it seriously and keep up with our training," freshman thrower Jill Kornetsky said.

Kornetsky had a big day, winning the weight throw with a personal-record 15.11-meter toss. Kornetsky also won the shot put with a 12.59-meter throw.

Also winning in the field for the Crimson was freshman Amy Bei, who won the pole vault with a 10'4 jump.

Freshman Alayna Miller excelled, winning the 60-meter hurdles (8.99 seconds) and finishing second in the triple jump (11.57 meters).

The remaining individual winners for the Crimson were freshman Kendra Barron in the 400-meters (57.94), junior Mary Unsworth in the mile (4:53.27) and senior Kim Megdanis in the 3000-meters (10:38.2).

The Crimson women were victorious in both the distance medley (12:43.64) and the mile relay (4:03.42).

The men's track team did not fare well as the women's did.

The three event winners were John Kraay in the shot put (15.53), Arthur Ferguson in the triple jump (14.41) and David Martin in the 5000-meters (14:32.1).

In the 800-meters, former Harvard track star Joe Ciollo '99, running for the Central Mass. Striders, won with a time of 1:54.9. Captain Dominic Patillo (1:57.9) was the top athlete from the present Crimson team.

The medley relay team suffered a tough defeat, getting narrowly edged out at the finish line by Northeastern.

With the workout from the Harvard Select Meet, both the men and women should be in good shape for the Harvard-Yale-Princeton tri-meet next Saturday.