Heps Track 2010

I realize this is a thread for the indoor meet but when is the league going to bring the outdoor meet back to New York. With tons of alumni here, this would be a way to market the meet. Columbia's Wien Stadium used to be a regular stop for the outdoor Heps. Is this because of the facility's limited throws area?

Glad to see that the indoor meet will be back at the Armory in 2011.

My understanding is the the meets are rotated among the member schools - with Columbia, Cornell, Harvard and Dartmouth handling indoors, and Princeton, Penn, and Yale hosting outdoor.

Some of this has to do with climate, and some with facilities - Brown is out of the rotation because neither of their facilities are up to hosting the event. Wien is out because, it seems, Columbia hosts indoor at the Armory.

The bummer is some of these other facilities are barely adequate. The only real championship venues (quality facilities and spectator areas) are Princeton's outdoor facility, and Harvard and the Armory indoor.

My ideal scenario would be for HEPS track to follow XC and have all of the championships in New York City. Hold indoors in the Armory, and have outdoors at Ichan Stadium.

NYC has great facilities, is central for the schools, and is a bit easier to get to and has a bit more to do than Hanover or Ithaca or Princeton

I have spoken with Coach Wood and he said that Icahn really wanted to host Heps there. Would be such an incredible venue for the outdoor meet.

Harvard/Armory only facilities sufficient for indoor?

Princeton for outdoor?

Here are places that can easily host heps:

Outdoor:

Any Ivy

Indoor:

Harvard (nice banked track - albeit 220y.. good seating)

Armory (nice banked 200m...great seeting)

Dartmouth (flat 6 lane 200m - but plenty of room for warmups on turf, not ideal but some space for bleachers)

Cornell (flat 8 lane 200m and throwing cage/great seating)

Princeton maybe (6 lane track - not as much room for bleachers but I bet they could swing it)

Ancient Ivy wrote:

The bummer is some of these other facilities are barely adequate. The only real championship venues (quality facilities and spectator areas) are Princeton's outdoor facility, and Harvard and the Armory indoor.

Are you serious? I'm fairly certain that Franklin Field would be adequate as a 'real championship venue', given they host Penn Relays there every year...

I've heard that Penn has long range plans to build an indoor track facility on land acquired from the Post Office.

0/10

OK, let me elaborate...

A championship indoor facility should have a banked track and adequate seating for spectators and the teams. We only have that at the Armory and Harvard.

A championship outdoor facility should be able to accommodate all of the events and have seating that is appropriate to the crowd sizes Heps gets, and at least to me, it should "look" like a stadium (unlike Yale, for instance). Princeton has that, and maybe Columbia, but not sure about the throws there.

Franklin is great when it's full for the Penn Relays, but it's not set up for throws, and the crowd that Heps gets rattles around in there. And the track is weird.

Sure, there are lots of places that could host Heps, but why settle for could?

And back on point, does anyone want to talk about the upcoming Heps indoor and outdoor seasons?

OK, lets try with short sprints and hurdles.

Last year, Vetecu/Columbia won the 60 and the 100 outside, but he didn't compete last weekend in the DYC meet.

Top times (sub 7) so far are from (mostly) underclassmen:

6.88 Reilly/Dartmouth-Fr

6.90 Adarquah-Yiadon/Cornell-Fr

6.90 Abdul-Shakeer/Dartmouth-Jr

6.93 Geleneck/Harvard-So

6.94 Charbonneau/Princeton-so

6.96 Smith/Brown-so

In the hurdles, Cornell is crowding the top Top times (sub 8.40):

8:19 Hagber/Cornell - So

8:24 Huber/Cornell - So

8:32 Williams/Cornell - Jr

8:39 Carey/Penn - Fr

So who is missing? Who will step up? Who is struggling?

Ancient Ivy wrote:

A championship outdoor facility should be able to accommodate all of the events and have seating that is appropriate to the crowd sizes Heps gets, and at least to me, it should "look" like a stadium (unlike Yale, for instance). Princeton has that, and maybe Columbia, but not sure about the throws there.

The bleachers were roughly half full at the Yale Heps a couple years ago, so I'm not sure why a "stadium look" is a requirement. It's not as though the capacity is needed, nor did it in any way add to my experience running Heps back in the day.

I'm actually more curious as to how the distance events will pan out, since not many people have run the 3K on up yet this season. And from the last few years at Heps, coaches add in various people who did not run in those events previously in the season but these people are good enough to score points. Considering how Columbia edged out Princeton for the men's XC title, can Columbia extend the distance dominance through indoors? Or will Princeton or Cornell come out of the woodwork and reclaim the distance titles?

Meanwhile for the women, well, Princeton is just too dominant. Can they win indoors as a team this year, so they can go for the XC/ind/out title sweep?

Wow, lots of fast Heps performances today, especially in the middle distances.

Four frosh men have really stood out:

Nick Wade (Cornell) went 1:51.96 today at the Armory, following up his 2:23.99 scorcher at Penn St. two weeks ago

Anthony Rominaw (Dartmouth) dropped a 1:51.02 today in Boston

Russel Dinkins (Princeton) smoked a 1:01.70 in NY today to follow up his 1:53.57 solo win on the flat track last week at Princeton.

Nathan Mathabene (Princeton) went 4:07.37 tonight at the Armory and did a 2:26.49 last week at Princeton.

Wow.

Mid-distance is really heating up with huge PR's today from Hill (Harvard), Labosky (Yale), and Weinstein (Penn).

Interestingly, of the returning Heps finalists at 800 in and out and 1000, only Soloff and Van Ackeran (Princeton) have turned in anything fast. The Columbia guys are off to an (intentionally?) slow start, and big guns Oliver and Moriarty have yet to run this year.

Note that the Armory Meet was scored and was a duel between Princeton and Cornell for most of the night.

1 Princeton 126

2 Cornell 109.5

3 Virginia 82.5

4 Connecticut 82

5 Albany 74.5

6 Delaware State 40

7 Villanova 36.5

8 Army 28

9 PUERTO RICO-RIO PIEDRAS 24

10 Morgan State 13

11 Unattached 8

12 Columbia 7

It looks like princeton is 18 times better than columbia! Oh - or maybe nobody cared about the score and just focused on the individual events and athletes.

That said - great running by princeton (3k esp) throughout the meet. Good cornell 800 freshman as well (1:51?)

Thanks for the thread. Today (2/1/10) will be my only chance to get on the board until after the indoor Heps are over--glad to see there's already been some discussion.

I went to the Ivy performances site (http://www.directathletics.com/lists/track/55_485.html) and took a look at the marks posted there. Based on that, and assuming my math was correct (I didn't proofread it, and won't), ignoring fractions (life's too short), and using 10-8-6-4-2-1 scoring, I came up with these virtual-meet scores:

MEN

Cornell 203

Princeton 175

Dartmouth 58

Penn 52

Harvard 35

Yale 33

Brown 21

Columbia 8

WOMEN

Cornell 114

Princeton 104

Penn 78

Columbia 73

Brown 62

Harvard 52

Dartmouth 27

Yale 13

So my picks? As usual, I'd love to be wrong, but: Princeton, both sexes.

Here's why. On the men's side, a huge slug (29) of Cornell's points are in the heptathlon. We know that is likely to change dramatically--almost the only guys who've *done* a hep so far this season are from Cornell.

Moreover, PU--which has four guys under 4:10 in the mile and the two fastest in the 3000--gets a grand total of two points from the 4x8, DMR, and 5000 listings combined. (They haven't run a stud DM and have no 4x8 or 5k times yet.) They certainly can expect major points in those.

And, of course, Princeton handled Cornell head-to-head this weekend (granting that neither team went for the absolute max in points, and that some events were different from those that will be in the Heps).

Similarly, Princeton's women have the two fastest times in the 3000 and in the 5000--with four different individuals. Given that the 3k/5k is a doable double, I'd expect to see a ton of points for them from those events at the real Heps. Cornell just doesn't seem to have the strength in the field events, this time, to overcome that.

Otherwise:

The men's meet, despite outstanding individuals from almost every school, should still be another dual meet. I have no idea why Columbia's men have disappeared--their virtual 8 points come from the relays and they have no one who's top-six (to date) in any individual event.

Columbia's women, on the other hand, are developing into real contenders and might even beat Cornell in the 4x4--when did Cornell lose that last? And, beyond that, the women's meet has more "good" teams than the men's and should be strongly contested into the second day.

Finally: Penn is doing a good job (on both sides, actually). They seem to be consistently underrated, and I'm not sure why. Despite the flashiness of the female stars from Columbia and Harvard, Penn could hang in for third in the real meet.

_______________________________________________________

By the way, I based these points on the men's meet's not including the 200, and the women's not including the 500, 1000, or DMR. I think I got that right, but am open to correction on the events or my math. Or my analysis.

Okay, that's it. Have fun, all. GO BIG RED!

BRF, great to see you again on these boards.

Indeed, this was a speedy weekend. I definitely think that Columbia women could give Cornell and Princeton a run/jump/throw for their money, particularly if Cornell does not have a quad-threat on their roster anymore. Princeton might be a tougher battle, but it can all come down to the relays. Can Columbia put in a strong 4x8 or DMR? They have really improved on their sprints in the last few years, but can their distance squad keep up?

I think the Columbia men will come out of the woodwork in the next few weeks. This was only their second weekend of competition (I believe, either that or third) so they are a bit behind on the rest of the league.

I know Harvard has not pulled out any of their distance big guns yet. They might not do that until HYP (2 weeks), where tri-meet pride is on the line. However, I am quite impressed with their freshmen class. I just hope that Jeremey Gee can pull in a few more sprinters/hurdlers to help round out both squads. The Harvard crew has the Battle of Beantown on the line for next weekend (where the men are defending champs) so we'll see who comes out for that.

this is crazy, but maybe some teams figured out that there are more important things than racing multiple times before it is February. Doing these team predictions are so pointless.

this is crazy wrote:

this is crazy, but maybe some teams figured out that there are more important things than racing multiple times before it is February. Doing these team predictions are so pointless.

The team predictions are worth little value until the week before conference. Then it can give us an idea as the strength of various teams before life tosses in a few monkey wrenches on various teams.

this is crazy wrote:

this is crazy, but maybe some teams figured out that there are more important things than racing multiple times before it is February.

That depends on whether you want to make Nationals, if you do you need to run a qualifying time somewhere.