The men and womens’s track teams competed in different states last weekend, each finishing third in their respective meets.

The men’s team battled strong crosswinds with a limited squad to take third out of 11 teams at the UMass Nine-Way Meet in Amherst, Mass., on Saturday, while the women’s squad finished third out of three teams at the annual Penn-Yale-Princeteon tri-meet at Princeton.

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In order to prepare for the rest of the outdoor season, the men’s distance team did not compete in Amherst, and many other members scaled back the number of events they participated in. This, combined with winds as high as 30 mile-per-hour winds, made the meet especially difficult for the Bulldogs, according to hurdler Ted Galligan ’10.

“The wind made conditions really tough for people competing in the long jump, pole vault, 400-meter, 400-meter hurdles and the 200-meter,” Galligan said.

Galligan took third in a close 400-meter hurdles race with a time of 54.82 — a mere .21 seconds behind the leader.

“I would have preferred to not lose by a couple of tenths,” Galligan said. “But then again, [the place in which you finish] isn’t that significant at a meet like this — if I had finished in 56 seconds and won, I would have felt much worse about it.”

Even without the missing competitors, Yale still had a strong showing in the field events. Eric DePalo ’10 won the pole vault with a jump of 4.80-meters, a foot higher than the reset of the competition. Mike Levine ’13 placed first in the discus with a distance of 49.95-meters and second in the hammer throw at 49.66-meters, while David Smith ’11 finished .02-meters behind Central Connecticut’s Rashad Williams to take second in the shot put. Reynolds Holmes ’10 took third in the long jump with a distance 6.62-meters, and Yifan Chen ’12 and Samba Binagi ’11 finished third and fourth, respectively, in the triple jump.

Remi Ray ’10 raced for the first time in over two months on Saturday, earning a strong sixth-place finish in the 800-meter run in 1:55.57.

The sprinters showed off their teamwork on Saturday by taking first in the 4 x 100-meter relay with 42.43 seconds. Matt Bieszard ’12 and Marty Evans ’11 took second and third in the 200-meter, respectively, while Holmes and Nathan Molina ’11 also finished together in the 100-meter dash, taking fifth and sixth, respectively. David Soiles ’10 placed fourth in the 400-meter with a time of 50.60 seconds — he was the only competitor for Yale in the event.

“Bieszard… [was] certainly the performance of the meet for us,” Galligan said. “He’s been training phenomenally and will be a significant player for us at Harvard-Yale and the Heptagonal Championships this year.”

The women’s squad also suffered from a lack of contestants as it finished third with 25 points.

“We just didn’t have as many runners in each event, which made it hard to score a lot of points, distance runner Elizabeth Marvin ’13 said.

Marvin finished fourth in the 3,000-meter — a race in which Princeton and Penn each fielded six or more runners against Yale’s three.

Despite being edged out of fourth place, which she held the entire race, at the last second, Marvin still finished with an ECAC-qualifying time of 9:50.78. Marvin beat her previous personal best by six seconds after a winter full of injuries. Anne Lovelace ’12, also posted a PR in the event with a sixth-place finish in 10:00.45.

The Elis had a good showing in the field events with Antonia Renker ’13 and Rachel Kuschner ’11 taking second and fourth, respectively, in the discus throw. Emily Anderberg ’13 also scored points for Yale, finishing second in the javelin throw, with teammate Eve King ’11 taking fourth. Rounding out the field events, Adele Jackson-Gibson ’13 was fourth in the long jump, Emily Standish ‘11 finished fourth in the high jump and Jenna Poggi ’13 took third in the pole vault.

Alexandra Cadicamo ’10 had an impressive third-place finish in the 1,500-meter race with a personal record of 4:31.61 — only .17 seconds from qualifying for the ECACs.

Dakota McCoy ’13 raced in both the 100-meter and 400-meter hurdles, finishing fourth and third, respectively, in the two events. Jackson-Gibson was fourth in both the 100-meter dash and the 200-meter dash, with teammates Alexa Monti ’12 and Marieme Mbaye ’12 finishing in sixth and eighth, respectively, in the 200-meter.

The 4 x 400-meter relay team of Kate Grace ’11, Allison Rue ’13, Claudia Duncan ’10, and Poggi finished in 3:47.67 – Yale’s second-fastest time ever in the event (the school record of 3:45.85 was set in 2003). The 4 x 100-meter team of Jackson-Gibson, Duncan, Mbaye and Briggs placed third in a close race with a time of 47.92 seconds.

Grace traveled to the University of Tennessee’s Sea Ray Relays in Knoxville, Tenn., on Friday to compete in the 800-meter run against other nationally ranked runners. She finished third in the race with a time of 2:07.03, .13 seconds off the leader and three seconds ahead of the fourth-place runner. Grace came back to Princeton on Saturday to race in the 4 x 400-meter relay as well as the 400-meter dash, finishing second in the latter with a time of 55.98 seconds. This time was a mere .04 seconds off the ECAC-qualifying time and one of her best collegiate performances yet in that distance.

“The goal going down there was to get good racing experience so when I get to the finals and ECACs I’ve had the experience,” she said.

Next up for the Bulldogs is the annual home meet against Harvard on April 17 at the Dewitt-Cuyler Track.