It is Heps week for the men’s and women’s track and field teams. A year of training is going to culminate this weekend at Princeton, where the Red will compete to claim the outdoor Heps championship.In the last weekend of competition before the Heps, the track and field teams competed at the historic Penn Relays and hosted the Big Red Invite. “Penn Relays was very good for the most part. We had some tremendous performances, some of the top performances in Cornell track history. Stephen Mozia won the championship of America with a new school record,” men’s head coach Stephen Taylor said. “The 4x100m relay won the IC4A section of the relay, running the second fastest time ever by an Ivy League team … Rob Robbins had the longest throw of the meet in the javelin.”Notable performances from the men’s team included the 4x100m relay team of Ryan Hynes, Jedidiah Adarquah-Yiadom, Bruno Hortelano-Roig and Kinsley Ojukwu claiming first place in the IC4A Championship division with a time of 40.24 seconds, sophomore Stephen Mozia winning the shot put Championship division at 63’ to break a 38-year-old Cornell record in the event and sophomore Robert Robbins claiming the college division of the javelin with a heave of 231’ 10”.Women’s head coach Rich Bowman spoke about how this past weekend once again demonstrated how well his team has performed all season.“It was really one of the best Penn Relays we’ve had since I’ve been here,” he said. “The kids were great. There were all kinds of wonderful things happen. The whole season’s been great. The Sunday meet was fantastic too. We’re really proud of where [the team] is going right now.”Notable women’s performances included senior co-captain Victoria Imbesi claiming the Eastern Shot Put title with a throw of 48’10.25”, junior Rachel Sorna winning the 3K championship in 9:20.36 and a team of sophomore Mina Amick-Alexis (14.3), freshman Hillary Holmes (14.3), junior Zaakirah Daniels (14.1) and freshman Kayla Wong (14.9) winning the Shuttle Hurdle relay in 57.59.“It absolutely says that we have the potential to score a lot of points as a team,” Taylor said. “Across the board, as a coach you look for your top 36 athletes to compete at the Heps, and everyone of those guys is moving in the right direction.”With their eyes now set on claiming the Heps title and bringing it back to Cornell, both coaches spoke about what it’s going to take for their teams to emerge victorious. “Well I just think they need to keep doing the same things that they’ve been doing,” Bowman said. “They’ll do well if they continue to follow the process, keep doing what they’re doing and listen. If they’re comfortable in their own skin, they’ll be fine.”Taylor said he wants his team to realize its potential and to set the bar high.“I’ll be most pleased with their ability to put themselves in situations in which they can fail and not be afraid,” he said. “I think self doubt is a valuable piece of realism, but constant self doubt keeps you down.”In the end though, Taylor laid out a blueprint for how to win the Heps.“It’s going to take them competing unconsciously, laying it on the line with no fear and scrapping for every possible point in every event,” he said.
Original Author: Juan Carlos Toledo