For the first time since February, the men’s and women’s track and field teams were able to compete at home, giving them a chance to try out some newly refurbished areas at the Dewitt Cuyler Athletic Complex and prepare for the Ivy League Heptagonal Championships, which will be held at Yale in three weeks. With schools like the University of New Haven, the University of Rhode Island and UMass Lowell, along with several other Ivies in the lineup for the contest, the Elis knew they would have some tough competition.
“Competing at home was glorious. It was awesome to debut our new throwing circles and runways, and seeing some of the other Ivy League schools there was a good preview of Heps,” Karleh Wilson ’16 said.
The women started the day with Kelsey Lin ’14 taking seventh in the 100-meter dash. Emily Cable ’15 followed with a photo finish in the 200-meter dash, taking third place less than half a second behind Jennifer Meech ’16 of Dartmouth, who took first. Yale’s first win came from Emily Waligurski ’17, who won the 800-meter run, with fellow freshman Frances Schmiede taking third. The 1500-meter run finished in the same fashion, with Shannon McDonnell ’16 taking first and Sarah Barry ’14 taking third. In the 100-meter hurdles, Mackenzie Mathews ’16 took third and set both a personal and Yale record with a time of 14.43 seconds. Kira Garry ’15 took the last first-place finish for the women with a victory in the 3000-meter steeplechase. Her preliminary time of 10:21.01 was over twenty seconds faster than that of the second-place Northeastern finisher, Lucy Young ’17.
Amanda Snajder ’14 started off the field events with a third-place finish in the high jump. Emily Urciuoli ’14 continued her streak of strong showings in the pole vault with a second-place finish and a height of 3.44 meters. Alisha Jordan ’15 took second in the long jump and Wilson again placed in shot put, taking third. Wilson also took fifth in the hammer throw, but did not compete in discus in this meet.
“I didn’t throw discus last week at all, so I’m excited to refocus on the event and compete in an elite field at Penn Relays,” Wilson added.
The women finished fourth out of eleven schools with a total of 98.33 points. Dartmouth and Brown took first and second, respectively.
The men began with a fourth-place finish by Marc-Andre Alexandre ’17 in the 100-meter dash and a third-place finish by Nnamdi Udeh ’14 in the 200-meter dash. After a series of fourth-place finishes by Chandler Crusan ’17 in the 400-meter dash and Michael Grace ’15 in the 800-meter run, Kevin Dooney ’16 took second in the 1500-meter run.
“This was actually my first time competing at our outdoor track, so it was nice to have a chance to do so before we host Heps in three weeks. Competing at home gave us a chance to get fully comfortable with what we’ll need to do going into Heps,” Dooney said.
Yale was shut out of the next few events before the 4×400 meter relay ‘B’ team of Alexander McDonald ’16, Dylan Hurley ’15, Daniel Jones ’14 and Udeh took second. The field events were uneventful, as Yale only had three competitors overall.
The final total for the men was 42 points, which was good for sixth place. Dartmouth took first overall and Brown took third.
Next weekend, the Bulldogs head to the Penn Relays in Philadelphia to face elite competition from schools all around the country. Competition begins April 24.