Track and Field: Men’s, women’s teams complete triple crowns

The women assured their win after a crushing victory in the 4x800m relay by freshman distance runner Kristin Smoot, classmate and middle distance runner Molly Higgins, and sophomore middle distance runners Greta Feldman and Alexis Mikaelian. The Tigers, with a time of eight minutes, 38.33 seconds, finished more than nine seconds faster than the previous meet record. The men clinched the title on their last event, the 4x400m, as the team of freshman Tom Hopkins, juniors Ricky Kearney and Austin Hollimon and senior Mike Eddy edged out Cornell by two seconds, finishing in 3:11.79.

With the win in the 4x400m, the men knocked off Cornell, which was in second place overall, to take the title. The men and the women teams completed triple crowns for the year, as both teams won Ivy League titles in cross country, indoor track and field and outdoor track and field.

After the first day of competition, the men had won three events and were in first place with 68 points. Hopkins became the Ivy League long jump champion with a distance of 7.43 meters on his fifth jump. Senior jumper Dion Lehman finished right behind Hopkins in second with a jump of 7.40 meters.

Senior thrower Craig Pearce won the Tigers’ 11th straight Ivy League title in the hammer throw, reaching 60.94 meters. Junior thrower Patrick Park was the runner-up in the shot put, throwing 17.03 meters. Junior pole-vaulters Derek Hynes and David Slovenski finished tied for second along with Harvard’s Fedor Garin, clearing 4.80 meters.

Junior distance runner Donn Cabral won Saturday’s only running event, the 10,000m. His final time was 30:22.28, more than two seconds faster than the runner-up, while freshman distance runner Alejandro Arroyo Yamin placed third with a time of 30:32.73.

The women’s team found itself in second place after Saturday. Senior thrower Emma Ruggiero was the runner-up in the hammer throw after setting a new personal best of 59.23 meters. Senior thrower Thanithia Billings was the runner-up in the shot put, also throwing a personal best of 15.37 meters.

Sophomore pole-vaulter Tory Worthen won her fourth straight pole vault title across the indoor and outdoor seasons, clearing 3.90 meters. Right behind her was freshman Samantha Anderson, who cleared 3.80 meters. Anderson was also Worthen’s runner-up in the Indoor Heptagonal championship.

The men continued to have success on Sunday. Freshman jumper Omar Jarrett took third place in the high jump, clearing 2.04 meters for a personal best, while freshman Damon McLean reached 14.84 meters in the triple jump to finish in fifth. Senior George Abyad was the runner-up in the discus throw, reaching 52.22 meters on his third throw of the day.

The Tigers’ 4x100m team of junior sprinter Ivan Charbonneau, sophomore sprinter Sebastian Steffen, Kearney and Hopkins clocked in at 40.97 to finish second.

Cabral, coming off his win in the 10,000m on Saturday, won the 3,000m steeplechase on Sunday, finishing in 8:41.93. Senior distance runner Mark Amirault took the 1,500m championship, clocking in at 3:57.96, while classmate Kyle Soloff finished fourth with 3:58.41. Amirault also won the 5,000m at 14:12.31.

Princeton took the top three spots in the 400m, with Hollimon in first at 46.99 seconds, Eddy in second at 47.53, and Hopkins in third with a personal-best 47.66. Sophomore sprinter Russell Dinkins finished second in the 800m, only 0.05 seconds behind the winner. Hopkins and Steffen continued their success in the 200m, with Hopkins taking second at 21.49, a personal best, and Steffen taking fourth at 21.87.

The women started strong on Sunday to surge into the lead, as senior distance runner Sarah Cummings was the runner-up in the 5,000m at 16:48.51, with junior distance runner Alex Banfich close behind in sixth. Mikealian was the runner-up in the 1,500m, clocking at 4:20.79, less than a tenth of a second behind the leader.

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The woman’s 4x100m team, consisting of sophomores Abidemi Adenikinju and Erin Guty, freshman Lily Miller and junior Eileen Moran, took first with a time of 46.31. The 4x400m team of freshman Carrie Vuong, junior Danielle Glaeser, sophomores Joie Hand and Melissa Zadjel finished fifth at 3:48.92.

Moran became the 100m champion with a time of 11.83, while Adenikinju finished sixth at 12.28.

The Tigers will look to take their momentum from their dominating performance in the Heptagonal Championships to the ECAC/IC4A Championships next weekend at home, in preparation for the NCAA East Regional in Bloomington, Ind., at the end of the month.