Crimson Women Edge Penn, Columbia at Heps

Far above Cayuga’s waters, Harvard’s track and field squad looked to finish the indoor season with a strong showing in the two-day Indoor Heptagonal Championships at Cornell’s Barton Hall. The women improved upon last year’s fifth-place finish with 46 points, enough to narrowly beat Penn and Columbia for fourth.

The men repeated an eighth-place finish, but improved on their point totals, raking in 14 team points.

“We have a lot better team than we have had in the past few years,” senior co-captain Sally Stanton said.

The Princeton women—who finished only four points ahead of the Crimson in the HYP meet a few weeks ago—led the pack with 114 points, while the Big Red led the men with 205 points.

“Just to know that we can keep up with a team that’s winning right now,” Stanton said. “It’s good to know that we have two seasons.”

Junior Becky Christensen led the Harvard squad, shattering the oppostion in the high jump yesterday, clearing 1.79m (5’10.5”) compared to Brown jumper Grace Watson’s 1.73m.

Christensen earned her first indoor Heps victory in the event—having fallen second to Cornell’s Sarah Wilfred in the prior two seasons—as well as a bid for the NCAA Championships in two weeks.

“It’s nice to have that title,” Stanton said of Christensen’s first-place finish. “It was also nice that they gave an award in honor of our coach who passed away last year, Paul Turner.”

Former Harvard track and field coach Frank Haggerty was on hand to award Christensen the first Paul Turner High Jump Award.

In the field events that took place primarily on Saturday, the Harvard squad had a tough time getting things going. Junior Neville Irani started things off with a 16.77m (55’2.5”) weight throw, good enough for an eighth-place bid.

Freshman Sean Gil followed, earning fifth place in the men’s pole vault with a 4.80m (15’9”), just .2 m shy of the leader.

Hot off last year’s 3.80m (12’5.5”) clearance in last year’s Indoor Heps pole vault, senior Clara Blattler only managed a 3.60m (11’9.75”) clearance to tie with Princeton’s Courtney Regan for sixth. Senior co-captain Sally Stanton followed with 3.45m (11’3.75”) finish.

Junior Brittan Smith leapt 5.76m (18’10.75”) in the long jump event to warrant third, behind Cornell’s Jeomi Maduka’s Indoor Hep record-setting 6.45m (21’2”) lunge. Smith also placed in the 60m dash.

“It’s nice that [Brittan]’s scoring repeatedly in more than one event,” Stanton said.

At the end of the day, junior Shannon Flahive’s 3479 points in the pentathlon earned her second in the event as well as an ECAC qualification.

Freshman Dina Emde also placed in the pentathlon in addition to the high jump.

Following Saturday’s play, the women had 17.5 points and the men had only three points.

Yesterday’s track-heavy schedule provided more of a surge for the squad’s point totals.

In addition to Christensen’s high jump performance, an injury-ridden junior Dara Wilson offered a third-best finish in the 60m Hurdles with an ECAC qualifying time of 8.84.

And despite battling walking pneumonia recently, senior Danielle Mirabal placed fourth in the 60m dash with a 7.77 finish.

“Our team’s resiliency this weekend, their ability to dig deep to score points really showed this weekend,” Harvard coach Jason Saretsky said.

Junior Aishlin O’Callaghan also made her bid for the ECAC with a 2:12.96 third-place finish in the 800m run.

Finishing with 5085 points in the heptathlon, senior Alex Lewis notched an IC4A qualifying fifth spot.

Despite not finishing at the top, the track and field team has a lot to look forward to in the coming spring season. The women improved upon last year to finish in the top half of the pool.

And although the men still finished last, they were able to scrape together points from new events, like freshman Dan Chenoweth’s fifth-place 8:34.77 finish in the 3000m run.

Next weekend, the women will send qualifying student-athletes to the ECAC Indoor Track and Field Championships at the Reggie Lewis Center in Boston, while the men’s qualifiers will compete in the IC4A Championships at Boston University’s track.

Then the spring season kicks off with a roadtrip to Houston for the Texas Southern Relays.

“We have the potential, we are capable of competing at the top for the first time since I’ve been here,” Saretsky said.

—Staff writer Dixon McPhillips can be reached at fmcphill@fas.harvard.edu.