Women’s track & field head coach Lou Duesing can’t really ask for too much more than his team gave him last weekend at the Penn State Invitational. A dozen tracksters produced personal best performances. His 4×400 relay crushed the school record. And junior sprinter Katy Jay broke the school record in the 200…after sophomore Hanna Garrity had already broken it earlier in the day.
If that wasn’t enough, the Red placed third in a high-class meet that included heavyweights from the Big East and the Big Ten.
“I was extremely pleased with the way the team competed,” Duesing said. “People just fought for every point and every place they could get.”
So when the Cornell women host Penn, Colgate, NYU and Ithaca tomorrow at Barton Track, Duesing admits that he’ll be less concerned about winning and more focused on seeing his squad’s momentum climb.
“The big focus is going to be on continuing to do the things well that we did last week,” he said. “I’d like to see the same kind of excitement.”
According to Duesing, Penn’s strengths lie in its sprinting and hurdling crews. In addition to its blossoming sprint corps, Cornell counters with its distance runners. Last week, for example, freshman Kate Boyles won the 3000-meter run by 22 seconds.
However, it’s in the throwing events in which Duesing expects significant improvements.
“The throwers were disappointed [last week], so they’re happy to be back.”
For the men —