Led by two first place finishes from Katy Jay, the Cornell women’s track team produced an excellent all round performance to finish first in Saturday’s track meet in New Haven. The men’s team also fared well, going neck and neck with Army before eventually losing by a slim five point margin.
The women scored an impressive total of 82 points, edging out hosts Yale by five points. The Big Red scored victory in seven different events, and also recorded several second place finishes. Coach Lou Duesing was pleased by the performance of his team, but refused to single out any individual performer in his praise.
“When you’re scoring 70 something points, you need a lot of top performers out there” said Duesing.
And there were many to choose from among the Big Red. Jay recorded a sprint double, winning the 55-m and 200-m dashes.
Kim Chatman triumphed in the mile and was runner-up in the 800-meters. Caitlin Ramsey, Teresa Emery, and Danielle Brown also recorded individual victories, contributing to the team total of 82 points.
However, more important than the individual victories was the overall consistency of the team, according to Coach Duesing.
“Yale had a lot of winners, but didn’t win the meet.” he said. “We have a better and deeper team.”
On a day when there were many great individual performances, it was the 2nd and 3rd place finishes which mattered in the end, as the Big Red prevailed by a narrow margin.
Although overshadowed by the women, the men also had a good meet, finishing a close runner-up to Army. Like the women, the men won seven events and were unlucky to finish just five points behind Army. Geoff Van Fleet, winner in the 3000-m run, felt that the Big Red could have come out victorious at Saturday’s meet.
“There were places where we could have picked up points, where it could have gone either way” said Van Fleet.
Van Fleet was one of three Cornell athletes to earn first place finishes in the long distance events.
Colin Moore triumphed in the mile, and was second in the 1000-m, while Max King won the 5000-m in a time of 14:46:71. The success of the Big Red’s long distance runners was a result of the work ethic instilled by Coach Nathan Taylor.
“Our coach has been working us extremely hard” Van Fleet admitted.
The Red will return to action on February 9. Cornell is set to play host for a pentathlon scheduled for that day.
Archived article by Sun Staff