Women's track falls to Penn, tops Yale; Reed sets 400-meter record

A cursory glance at the final score reveals a blowout. But a closer look at Saturday's women's track and field tri-meet against Penn and Yale at Weaver Stadium shows encouraging results for Princeton in its first Ivy League competition of the spring season.

Without senior Nicole Harrison, who was finishing her thesis, and unable to challenge the Quakers' bevy of field athletes, the Tigers placed second to Penn, 99-54. The Elis brought up the rear with 30 points.

As for the final score, the Quakers outdistanced Princeton (1-1) with strong performances in the shot put, discus, long jump and triple jump. Penn swept the top two places in each of those events while also picking up three thirds, a fourth and two fifths. The Tigers, meanwhile, were limited to just two fourths and a fifth in the same events.

Head coach Peter Farrell was not worried about the point landslide in those events, as he pointed out that at the Heptagonal Championships, Penn will not be able to rack up all the top places.

The times

"Things will change in the Heps when Penn has to have (its) throwers go against other schools' throwers," said Farrell, who was generally very pleased with Princeton's performance.

Senior Bynia Reed continued her stellar spring season, winning both the 400 and 200 meters. Reed's time in the 200 was 25.24 seconds, while her time of 54.90 in the 400 broke her own school record.

"Those kinds of times this early in the season are just remarkable," Farrell said. "The track is fast, and we were impressed with what happened on the track this weekend."

Due to the speed of the Weaver Stadium track, meet records fell all over the place – both of Reed's wins came in meet-record time, while several other Tigers also wrote their names in the record books.

Records

Junior Aiyanna Burton took first place in the 400 hurdles in a time of 1:01.10, while junior Heather Onuma's time of 4:33.83 in the 1500 and senior Michelle D'Agostino's time of 2:09.20 in the 800 were also good enough for first. All three placed in meetrecord time.

Tiger runners were not the only ones to have solid performances. Sophomore Shawneequa Callier and freshman Rebecca Desman went one-two in the high jump, both bettering the previous meet record of five feet, five inches. Callier jumped 5-8.5, while Desman leapt 5-6.5.

Harrison's absence did not even hurt the Princeton 4x100 relay, as Burton, Reed, sophomore Allison Brown and freshman Catherine Sutcliffe placed second in a fast time of 47.73, just two tenths of a second behind Penn.