While the Bulldogs did not win, the inaugural meet held on the Frank Shorter ’69 Track saw a fine performance from the Yale women’s track and field team.
The Elis ended up right between their two biggest rivals at the annual H-Y-P meet Saturday, rolling over Harvard, 65-19, but failing to catch Princeton, which took first place with 75 points.
Members of the team, which has struggled of late and was coming off a 104-41 loss to Cornell, were happy with their performance.
“While it was disappointing to not win on Saturday, I think everyone on our team walked out of Coxe Cage Saturday evening with a different taste in their mouths, a different feeling from the past couple weekends,” pole vaulter Molly Lederman ’06 said. “As a whole, we competed well, and while victory was the goal, we certainly gave both Harvard and Princeton a run for their money.”
Six Elis combined to take seven individual events. Leading the way was double-winner Joslyn Woodard ’06, who came out on top with a 24.72 in the 200-meter dash and a 6.04-meter long jump.
The other victories went to Katherine Dlesk ’07 in the 400-meter run, Vanessa Mazandi ’05 in the 800-meter run, Lederman in the pole vault, Dionna Thomas ’06 in the triple jump and Margo Angelopoulos ’06 in the shot put.
The Bulldogs finished up with nine wins after a sweep of both the 4 X 400 and 4 x 800-meter relays.
The most dominant Eli performances came in the pole vault and the middle-distance events. Coming in right behind Lederman’s meet-record jump of 13 feet, 3.75 inches — breaking the record the junior set at last year’s H-Y-P — was Ashley Nolet ’07, with a jump of 12’3.50″. The next-closest finisher after the Eli duo vaulted nearly a foot lower than Nolet.
Bulldog runners took first and second in both the 400- and 800-meter runs. Jessica Pall ’07 came in behind classmate Dlesk at the 400-meter distance, while rookie Meredith Leenhouts ’08 finished runner-up behind veteran Mazandi.
One other noteworthy Eli was Lindsay Donaldson ’08 in the 1-mile run. Although Donaldson finished second to Princeton’s Cack Ferrell, the freshman distance runner’s time of 4:44.97 is a new Yale record.
Given the plethora of strong performances, the Elis were extremely pleased with their outing Saturday, despite not coming out on top.
“I thought it was a huge improvement over how we’ve been doing,” captain Katrina Svoboda ’05 said. “We really got into the competitive spirit.”
The Bulldogs have plenty of reasons to believe they can make up what little ground was left between them and their New Jersey rivals when the Elis and Tigers square off at the Indoor Heps, which will be held in two weeks in Cambridge.
“When we win, we win convincingly,” Svoboda said. “Their second, third and fourth places winners will be weeded out at Heps. Our runners are some of the best in the league and that will translate into more points for us.”
[ydn-legacy-photo-inline id=”16403″ ]