TRACK | Rain doesn’t damper Yale win

Holly Rippon-Butler 2:36 am, Apr 19, 2010

On Saturday, the men’s and women’s track teams faced off against Harvard at Yale’s Dewitt-Cuyler Track for the traditional dual meet. The men’s team beat the Crimson for the eighth consecutive year by a nine-point margin with 86 points total. Though there were many strong performances on the women’s side, the Bulldogs ended the day with 69 points to Harvard’s 93. Both Yale teams finished the meet with a slew of personal records and event wins.

MEN’S

The men’s meet against Harvard came down to a single event. With the scores tied, Eric DePalo ’10 needed to win in the high jump for Yale to clinch the victory. In his first time competing in the event at the collegiate level, DePalo not only cleared the height but also won with a jump of 1.89-meters.

DePalo was the story of the day — winning not only the high jump but also the pole vault (4.8 meters) and the 110-meter hurdles (15.32). In total, DePalo racked up 15 points for the Bulldogs.

“Putting a hurting on Harvard has been the highlight of my college track career so far,” Matt Bieszard ’12 said. “It was the most fun I’ve ever had at a meet, and the performances were better than we could have imagined.”

In the field events, the Bulldogs dominated. Reynolds Holmes ’10 won the long jump with a season best of 6.92-meters, defending his title from last year, while Tommy Winger ’13 jumped a personal best of 6.58 meters to place forth. In the triple jump, Yifan Chen ’12 took second with a personal record of 14.02 meters, and Samba Binagi ’11 finished fourth (13.01 meters).

Mike Levine ’13 scored points for the Bulldogs with his win in the discus (51.69 meters) and a third-place finish in the hammer throw (50.78 meters).

In the men’s 800-meter race, Chris Ramsey ’13 had a strong start off the line before falling back to fourth as his teammate Chris Labosky ’10 pulled away from the pack to lead by 30-meters with 200 meters to go. In a close sprint for the finish, Harvard’s Brian Paison edged out Labosky for first.

Labosky came back from racing the 800-meter run at Princeton’s Larry Ellis Invitation on Friday night, in which he took sixth with an NCAA divisional time of 1:50.10, to place second in Saturday’s race with a time of 1:50.74.

Labosky is currently ranked 24th in the Northeast in the 800-meter.

In the 1,500-meter run, the field appeared to be evenly matched until the Yale runners started pulling away with 200 meters to go. Conor Dooney ’12 won the 1500-meter with a personal best of 3:52.47, while Jeff Perrella ’11 took third (3:54.60) in a photo finish. Julian Sheinbaum ’12 finished fifth in 3:55.54.

The Bulldogs took the top three spots in the men’s 3,000-meter steeplechase with Alex Harris ’11 racing the event for the first time in two years and winning with a time of 9:09.53, qualifying him for the IC4As. Nathan Richards ’12 and Matt Bogdan ’11 followed with times of 9:20.86 and 9:26.04, respectively.

Marty Evans ’11 and Bieszard finished together again in the 200-meter dash, both running PRs with Evans edging Bieszard by one-hundreth of a second to take first in 21.67, putting the duo number two and three in the Ivy League.

The two sprinters also won other events for the Bulldogs. Evans qualified for the IC4As with a PR of 48.63 in the 400-meter dash, and Bieszard won the 100-meter dash in 10.91 — his first sub-11 time. In the race, Bieszard broke stride briefly to raise his arms in victory as he crossed the finish just inches ahead of Harvard’s Steven Geloneck..

Ted Galligan ’10 finished in second in both the 110-meter hurdles (15.37) and 400-meter hurdles (53.89).

Bieszard, Evans and Stanley teamed up for the 4×100-meter relay with Holmes to win by almost three seconds (41.64). The trio later joined with David Soiles ’10 to win the 4×400-meter relay in 3:16.93.

Labosky is currently ranked 24th in the Northeast in the 800-meter.

The Bulldogs took the top three spots in the men’s 3,000-meter steeplechase with Alex Harris ’10 racing the event for the first time in two years and winning with a time of 9:09.53, qualifying him for the IC4As. Nathan Richards ’12 and Matt Bogdan ’11 followed with times of 9:20.86 and 9:26.04, respectively.

Ted Galligan ’10 finished in second in both the 110-meter hurdles (15.37) and 400-meter hurdles (53.89).

WOMEN’S

On the women’s side, the Bulldogs had a strong showing but were ultimately unable to edge out Harvard.

In the sprints, Yale swept both the 100- and 200-meter dashes with Adele Jackson-Gibson ’13 winning the 100-meter in 12.36 and teammates Marieme Mbaye ’12 and Emily Shulan ’12 close behind in second (12.43) and third (12.53), respectively. In the 200-meter dash, Claudia Duncan ’10 finished in first with an ECAC-qualifying time of 24.76, followed by Jackson-Gibson, in a PR of 24.99, captain Faith Briggs ’10 (25.47) and Shulan (25.73).

“I’ve been under performing lately in meets, and I haven’t been satisfied with my results,” Jackson-Gibson said. “I was focusing way too much on technique in the heat of competition. So when I went into my events yesterday, I let my mind go blank, and I just did what I do best: run fast.”

Duncan rounded out her day by winning the 400-meter dash in 56.26 with Allison Rue ’13 finishing fourth in 58.56.

Kate Grace ’11 continued her middle-distance dominance by pulling away from the pack in the last 200 meters of the 800-meter and fighting off three Harvard runners to win in 2:11.53. She was followed by teammates Annalies Gamble ’13 in fifth (2:13.21) and Nihal Kayali ’13 in sixth (2:17.19). Grace also placed first in the 1,500-meter run, appearing to be biding her time for the first three laps of the race before pulling ahead to cross the finish line four seconds ahead of the other competitors in 4:34.50. Elizabeth Marvin ’13 edged past a Harvard runner at the finish to take second with a personal record of 4:38.88.

Alexandra Cadicamo ’10 placed second to Harvard’s three-time Heptagonal champion Claire Richardson in the 3,000-meter run a mid pouring rain to finish with a time of 9:52.73, qualifying for the ECACs.

“It was good to be reminded of the high-quality long distance competition in the Ivy League in preparation for Heps,” Cadicamo said. “I plan on chasing her down — or at least being a heck of a lot closer — next time.”

Anne Lovelace ’12 ran with a single Harvard competitor in the 3,000-meter steeplechase until the last three laps when Lovelace began to pull away, consistently gaining 10 meters a lap to win in 10:50.51.

Dakota McCoy ’13 placed second in the 400-meter hurdles with 1:04.94 and was fourth in the 100-meter hurdles with 15.73.

In the field events, Jackson-Gibson took second in the long jump with a jump of 5.60 meters, while Eve King ’11 finished fourth in 5.09 meters. Emily Standish ’11 took third in the high jump (1.55 meters) with King taking fourth (1.50 meters). Jenna Poggi ’13 and Bailey Carroll ’10 scored points for Yale in the pole vault with their respective second- (3.30 meters) and third-place (3.15 meters) finishes.

Antonia Renker ’13 and Rachel Kuschner ’11 placed second (37.29 meters) and third (34.43 meters), respectively, in the discus.

The 4×100-meter relay team of Jackson-Gibson, Duncan, Alexa Monti ’12 and Briggs finished first in 47.92, beating Harvard’s team by almost two minutes. The 4×400-meter team of Grace, Rue, Briggs and Duncan also finished first in 3:47.59.

“As a whole, the women’s team put up a really good fight against Harvard,” said Marvin. “It was such a close meet, and it showed us where we can improve in order to get them back at Ivy Championships.”

Next up, a select group of competitors will travel to Pennsylvania for the prestigious Penn Relays starting on Thursday. On Sunday both the men’s and women’s teams will host the annual Springtime Invitational at Dewitt-Cuyler Track.

Correction: April 19, 2010

An earlier version of this article misstated the class years of Claudia Duncan ’10 and Alex Harris ’10.

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