Harvard will go down in the record books after this weekend’s Ivy League Heptagonal Championships—and not because the teams finished in last place for the second year in a row. Freshman Lindsey Scherf set the American junior record in the 10,000-meter event, breaking a 26-year-old record.
Although the Harvard track and field teams finished with two eighth-place performances, a repeat of last year’s trip to the event, there were several bright spots, such as Scherf’s pair of second-place finishes and senior Samyr Laine’s victory in the triple jump.
The men earned 34 points over the two-day event, while the women fared slightly better with 41 points.
WOMEN
The women had several standout showings despite their low overall score. The performances of the freshmen in particular bode well for future seasons.
“We’re excited about next year,” sophomore Julia Pederson said, “because we have a pretty young team.”
Scherf’s time of 32:51.20 in the 10,000-meter race, in addition to putting her into the record books, earned her a second-place finish in the event and automatically qualified her for the NCAA regional meet. In the 5,000-meter run, Scherf earned second place once again, finishing the race in 16:42.01. She earned second-team All-Ivy honors in both races. Columbia’s Caroline Bierbaum took first in both races.
The Crimson had two other top-10 finishes in the 10,000-meter run. Senior Lindsey Yourman finished with a time of 35:08.03, placing seventh, and freshman Sarah Bourne finished in 36:53.74, good enough for ninth place.
Freshman Dimma Kalu registered another outstanding performance. She placed seventh in the 100-meter dash with a time of 12.03. She was followed closely by junior Stevie DeGroff, who came in eighth place, finishing in 12.28. Kalu performed even better in the 400-meter dash, securing a third-place finish with a time of 24.43.
Senior Vicky Henderson placed fourth in the 400-meter hurdles with a time of 1:03.38.
The competition was tight in the javelin throw—the second- through fourth-place finishers were all within nine-tenths of a meter of one another. Pederson’s 40.07-meter toss was enough to get her fourth place, breezing past the fifth-place competitor by almost four meters.
In the multi-event heptathlon, Pederson placed third over the course of the two-day span. Her score of 4,441 put her in the middle of a group dominated by Dartmouth, which had four of the top six finishers in the event.
MEN
After two days of competition at the Heptagonal Championships, the Crimson came home disappointed after finishing last for the second year in a row.
The team has suffered a “pretty disappointing season,” senior Reed Bienvenu said. “We were hoping to improve, but it just didn’t happen.”
