Heptagonals Track & Field

Brown — The Bears had a solid showings at the BU Terrier Invitational this weekend, propelled by (and in several cases outperforming) strong efforts from professional and post-collegiate athletes … The men’s DMR (Matt Duffy, Anthony Schurz, Nathan Elder, Duriel Hardy) set the tone for Friday’s competition, posting 9:55.80 to earn the squad second place and a spot on Brown’s top ten all-time list … Juniors Lucy Higgins and Jasmine Chukwueke finished second and third in the 500m, running ECAC qualifying marks of 1:15.55 and 1:15.61 … Junior Kesley Ramsey followed suit, posting 4:57.65 in the mile to qualify as well … The most noteworthy women’s performance on the track came from freshman Bree Shugarts in the 1k, where she lit up the stands with a gutsy kick in the last 100m to finish second overall with a time of 2:53.22, eighth-best in school history … Senior Dani Grunloh bested the field in the shot with a throw of 48-5 1/4 to win … Junior Gabrielle Baiter closed out the night’s successes with a jump of 38-3 1/4 in the triple, making her the first collegiate finisher, third overall … In Day 2 of competition, Brown’s men had several strong performances … Seniors Reginald Cole and Andrew Chapin swept the triple jump, claiming first and second with jumps of 47-11 3/4 and 46-8 respectively … Senior Bryan Powlen had a strong showing in the shot with a throw of 53-3 1/2 to finish fifth overall … Senior Duriel Hardy posted a personal best of 4:10.95 in the mile, qualifying for IC4As along with junior teammate Brian Schilder, who finished in a personal-best 4:14.65 … The men also demonstrated depth in the middle distances, qualifying four sophomores — Dan Lowry, Matt Duffy, Anthony Schurz and Tom Elnick — to IC4As in the 1k. (Report filed by Rachel Baker)

Columbia — Breaking school records is beginning to seem commonplace for the Columbia women this indoor season … Highlights from this weekend’s Armory Invitational include sophomore Monique Roberts continuing her dominance by winning the high jump with a clearance of 5-11 1/2, surpassing her previous record of 5-11 1/4 set last weekend … The 4×400m squad (Kyra Caldwell, Sharay Hale, Yamira Bell, Kristen Houp) garnered a convincing victory with a tremendous time of 3:42.60, comfortably erasing last year’s school record of 3:47.67 in the process … Hale and Caldwell would also show their composure and persistence by coming back the following evening with more great performances — Hale with an incredible 1:11.24 clocking to win by more than two seconds in the 500m event and put to rest the long standing 500m school record set in 1986 by Heather Ruddock … Caldwell placed second in the 60m hurdles in 8.67, just shy of her own school record of 8.64 set in 2009. (Report filed by Gerry Groothuis)

Cornell — The Big Red women competed at the NYC Armory and emerged victorious, scoring 162 points at a meet with stiff competition … Cornell won only two events, but demonstrated its depth by tallying consistent points … Amidst a number of strong performances, Melissa Hewitt stood out as a leader for the team, placing first in the 60 (7.59) and second in the 200 (24.91) … The other athlete to grab a victory was Jessica Weyman in the 400, clocking a 55.99 … She also contributed on the 4×400 meter relay, which placed second in a 3:44.92. The jumping squad showed itself a force to be reckoned with as sophomore Kristen Brandt led the charge, leaping to second place in both the long (17-11) and triple jumps (38-5). Sam Brady cleared 11-9 3/4 in the pole vault, giving her the No. 3 spot on the school’s all-time list … The 1,000-meter run was a standout event for the Red, which grabbed second, third, fourth and fifth. Led by Kim Standridge’s 2:51.13, that mark earned her a top-10 spot in the school record book … The men alternated between two venues with the 4×800-meter relay racing Friday night in the prestigious Millrose Games at Madison Square Garden … The squad of Tommy Roy, Nick Wade, Owen Kimple and Charlie Hatch raced to a fourth-place 7:39.81, before rejoining the team for more competition at the Armory the following day … On Saturday the Big Red were defeated by Princeton, losing by a just 16.5 points … Though the Big Red only had one event win, there were nine top three finishes … The win belonged to senior captain Duane Teixeira, whose 24-3 3/4 in the long jump cleared the IC4A standard … In response to the example set by their captain, the rookies rose to the occasion with a number of impressive performances … Freshman Nick Wade raced to an No. 6 all-time and IC4A qualifying time in the 800 while classmate Bruno Hortelano-Roig placed fifth in the 60 after going 6.92 in the prelims … Other standout freshman were Jedidiah Adarquah-Yiadon in the 60 (eighth, 7.02) and Daniel McCuiston (eighth, 2:30.33) in the 1000. (Report filed by Kate Murdoch)

Dartmouth — Multi-eventer Priscilla Trojano was the star for the Big Green at the Harvard multi-meet over the weekend when she ran a personal-best 2:26.33 in the pentathlon closing 800m run … That effort gave her the event win with 3,311 points, the best in Heps this season … Across the Charles River at the BU Terrier Classic, Natalie Stoll blazed to a win in the 500 in 1:14.54 to win by a full second … There is no 500 on the women’s Heps’ schedule, but she will be a strong competitor in the quarter … Monica Hernandez and Lizzie Short both had strong showings in the 3k as they hit the ECAC standard and broke the 10:00 barrier … Hernandez ran 9:53.70 while Short clocked 9:55.90 … Sprinters Connor Reilly and Muhammed Abdul-Shakoor continue to rank 1-2 in the Heps’ 60m dash and now Abdul-Shakoor is first in the 200 after running 21.86 at BU … Coach Barry Harwick thinks that rookie Anthony Romaniw is already running like a veteran in the 800 after he hammered out a 1:51.02 … Harwick thinks Romaniw will be among the Heps’ favorite at Leverone Field House later this month at the Championships … Four different Big Green runners scored huge PRs in the 3k … Phil Royer had a strong finish to cross the line in 8:19.63 (an 11-second best) … Adam Doherty cruised in at 8:27.81, an eight-second PR while sophomores Dylan Summmers and Peter Jankovsky ran 8:31 and 8:33 and neither had ever broken 8:45 … Barrett Folk continues to impress in the pole vault, clearing a new high of 15-5 1/2. (Report filed by Barry Harwick, as I retooled his weekly alumni email)

Harvard — The Crimson split up so it could compete at opposite sides of Boston as well as take some well-earned R&R … Three Crimson women competed at the Harvard Multi-Meet, continuing the recent success of the Crimson in the multis … Nicole Silva, Christine Reed, and Mary Hirst came third, fourth, and ninth respectively … Hirst won the shot put and came second in the high jump … Reed won the hurdles and came second in the 800m and long jump, while Silva came third in the long jump, shot put, and 800m events … Larger squads competed across town at the Boston University Terrier Classic … Frosh Carlyle Davis was the top female Crimson performer, taking second in the 800m (2:09.44, behind Nike’s Erin Donohue) and qualifying for ECAC Championships … Eliza Ives also qualified in the 5K (17:14.5) … On the men’s side, John Dingus, Darcy Wilson, and Brian Hill qualified for IC4As in the 500m (1:04.09), mile (4:11.79), and 800m (1:50.89) respectively … Wilson earned his third slot for IC4As, after posting qualifiers in the 800m and 1,000m earlier this season … Meanwhile, 2009 alum Becky Christensen competed in her first high jump competition as a professional last Friday, tying for third at the Millrose Games with a height of 5-8 3/4 … Being a part of one of the most renown indoor track meets in the world did not intimidate the jumper as she described the event “more like a show than a huge competition which made it really fun and relaxing… It was a great to start my season with a fun meet and a mark that I can build on.” (Report filed by Mary Boggs)

Penn — Six members of the men’s squad qualified individually for the IC4A Championships from the Penn State National in State College, Pa. … Freshman Tim Carey was among them in his first attempt in the 200m dash this year, as he was timed in 22.22, just two-hundreths of a second better than the qualifying time … Ssophomore Michael Cunningham became an easy qualifier in the mile after running 4:10.36 in a race where Binghamton’s Erik van Ingen cracked the four-minute barrier at 3:59.58 … In his first meet of the season, junior Luke Grau was clocked in 8:20.00 in the 3k, the sixth-fastest time in school history … And senior John Carelli soared 48-10 in his first triple jump of the season … All six of his jumps were beyond the IC4A standard … On Friday, junior James Foreman cleared 15-9 in the pole vault … Junior Kali Strother, who has the League’s top times in the 200 this year, has now posted one of the top 400m efforts in program history … She qualified for the ECAC Championships at Penn State with her finish of 56.92, fourth all-time at Penn … And senior Liza Lozovatskaya won the pole vault by crossing the bar at 11-9 3/4.

Princeton — Fred Samara’s Tigers won the New York Road Runners Saturday Night at The Armory II, earning 126 points to edge second-place Cornell, which finished with 109 1/2 points … The Heps entries were followed by Virginia with 82 1/2 and UConn with 82 … Sophomore Austin Hollimon continued to impress in the 400, winning the event in 47.65, his best mark of the season and two-tenths swifter than the NCAA Provisional Qualifying Standard time … Hollimon also helped the Tigers meet the NCAA Provisional mark in the 4×400 relay … Along with Ricky Kearney, Russell Dinkins and Mike Eddy, the group cruised in at 3:11.85 … Dinkins won the 500m in his first time out in the event, as his time of 1:01.70 is the second-fastest ever run by an Ivy Leaguer … Only Trinity Gray of Brown has run faster (1:01.36 in 2000) … Freshman Nathane Mathabane ran a 4:07.37 mile, the best time in the League this year, while senior Justin Frick won the high jump, clearing an NCAA Provisional 7-1 … The Tiger women were third at the event, behind Cornell and Villanova, but junior Tiffany Liu won the long jump reaching 18-4 1/2, a new personal best, on her first leap … Freshman Tory Worthen won the pole vault, this time topping 13-1 1/2 … Some of Coach Peter Farrell’s Tigers will return to The Armory next weekend to compete at the New Balance Collegiate Invitational … The others will head to New Haven, Conn., for Yale’s Glegengack Invitational.

Yale — Like Harvard, the Yale men and women split up this weekend with both teams traveling north to Boston … The women competed Friday at the Boston Indoor Games at the Reggie Lewis Center and the men competed Saturday at the Terrier Classic at BU … For the women, Yale’s top performer was junior middle distance standout, Kate Grace, who used her finishing speed to win the mile run in an ECAC qualifying and League-best time of 4:56.34 … Freshman Nihal Kayali was a few spots behind finishing fifth overall with a time of 5:01.12 … In the sprints, freshman Adele Jackson-Gibson turned in another set of strong performances this week, placing second in the 55m with a time of 7.24 and fifth in the 200m with a season-best clocking of 25.96 … Just a few miles away and a day later, the Yale men turned in a day of strong performances on the notoriously quick BU track … Five Yale men qualified for the IC4A meet as senior middle distance Heps scorers Kevin Brown (2:28.35, 1000m) and Chris Labosky (1:51.70, 800m) both exhibited a return to form posting indoor personal bests and dipping well under the IC4A standards in their respective events … In the 5,000, junior Max Walden posted a League-leading time of 14:24.26 and freshman Demetri Goutos also snuck under the IC4A standard in his 5k debut (14:45.86) … In the sprints both junior Marty Evans and sophomore Matt Bieszard performed impressive 200-400 doubles … Evans posted season bests and IC4A qualifiers of 49.10 and 22.17 while Bieszard followed close behind with times of 49.48 and 22.37 … Both Yale squads will return home for competition next weekend at the Giegengack Invitational. (Report filed by Murat Kayali)