W. Track Still No. 2 Indoors Despite Losses

The competition didn’t expect Harvard women’s track and field to make a whole lot of noise at the Heptagonal Championships this year. After all, the Crimson graduated one of its best senior classes in history in Brenda Taylor ’01, Marna Schutte ’01 and Dora Gyorffy ’01—a trio that typically scored 70 points in a championship meet by itself.

“In a way, it’s a nice position because we’re primed to surprise a lot of people who may not be giving us a second thought,” said Harvard Coach Frank Haggerty.

Indeed, Harvard did surprise when the final tally was announced at Indoor Heps. The Crimson placed second—the same position as a year before—only 12 points behind Cornell.

The biggest difference was in the throws. A year ago, Harvard scored just seven points between the weight throw and the shot put. This year the tally was 34—over a third of the team’s 101 points—as co-captain Nicky Grant and sophomores BreeAnna Gibson and Johanna Doyle finished one-two-three in the weight and Grant and Gibson went three-four in the shot.

Harvard continued its dominance in the jumps as well, as was fully expected given that the Crimson returned the defending NCAA indoor champion in the high jump—senior Kart Siilats—and the Heps’ best in the long jump and triple jump in junior Helena Ronner. The two combined for 38 points as Siilats took on Gyorffy’s trademark double—the high jump and triple jump—and took second behind Ronner in the latter while winning the former.

Harvard wasn’t nearly as competitive on the track. Junior Melissa Tanner, whose 10th-place finish at Cross Country Heps led a Harvard team that placed seventh in the fall, took third in the 5,000-meter run. Co-captain Carrie McGraw placed second in the 400 and helped the 4x400 relay team to a second-place finish. That was all the Crimson could muster on the track, but it was just enough to propel the team to the runners-up slot.

“It was considered throughout the league that this would be a rebuilding year for Harvard after losing so many superstars last year,” Grant said following the meet. “But I could not be more happy with the way that our team performed.”

The Outdoor Heptagonal meet was a different story. Siilats, Ronner and Grant all won their expected titles, while Doyle had an NCAA provisional qualifying performance in the hammer throw and Gibson took third in both the shot put and discus. But Harvard couldn’t manage a single top-three performance on the track. The Crimson finished fourth with 77 points—more than 100 back of champion Cornell, which tallied 187 to dominate the competition.

“Cornell was very impressive,” Grant said. “But we have a very young team, and in the future we’ll be right up there.”

The void that Gyorffy and Taylor left in regional and national competition beyond the Heps level by no means remained empty. Instead, Siilats and Grant filled the role, giving Harvard its third straight year with two outdoor ECAC titles by winning the high jump and hammer throw, respectively.

At the national level, Siilats could not defend her indoor title in the high jump, as injuries limited her to 10th place. Her outdoor season was an improvement, though, as she qualified for her first outdoor NCAA meet with a 1.81-meter jump at Heps and placed a respectable sixth place with a 1.79-meter performance at the national meet at Baton Rogue.

Grant, meanwhile, appeared poised to make a national run in the indoor season when she opened the year with a school-record performance of 18.90 meters in the weight throw, but she couldn’t top that for the rest of the season. In the end, that was only good enough for 27th in the nation—well back of what she needed for NCAAs.

But Grant’s NCAA dream did come true in the hammer throw in the spring. Although she hadn’t finished better than fifth at Heps in the event before this season, Grant suddenly emerged as one of the best in the nation this year, breaking the school record time and time again and improving her performance by seven meters through the course of the season.

Though Grant could not meet her best throw of 59.59 meters at NCAAs and finished 17th, just making it to Baton Rouge to close out her college career was plenty for her to be proud of.

WOMEN'S TRACK & FIELD

RECORD 7th at Cross Country Heps, 2nd at Indoor Heps, 4th at Outdoor Heps

COACH Frank Haggerty ’68

CAPTAINS Duretti Fufa (Cross Country), Nicky Grant and Carrie McGraw (Indoor, Outdoor Track)

HIGHLIGHTS Grant sets school records in weight throw and hammer throw. Junior Helena Ronner wins indoor and outdoor long jump and triple jump.