HEPS Track and Field 2012-13

Yes and no.

All totally my thoughts:

Both Cornell and Princeton have good longer sprinters who can do the 200-400 double. However, it will allow some of the other shorter sprinters that are appearing at the other schools to shine.

The conference has developed into a very strong mid-to-long distance conference, and we typically have those kinds of athletes making it to nationals. The shifting in the Heps schedule will force the teams to recruit differently and plan differently for Heps.

Princeton and Cornell's strength is their talent depth. They got guys who can score high in multiple events AND have a large number of talented people in the same events who can essentially sweep in the points. This is a good result of recruiting and coaching. Some of the other teams are trying to replicate this (the Harvard women this year and Columbia women last year are good examples of this) but it will take some time as coaches change out and schools begin to modify their thoughts on what kind of track team they wish to have.

fan of the sport. wrote:

Do you think eliminating those long sprint and middle distance events will allow another team or two to get closer to the dual meet that Princeton and Cornell have had over the past few years.

I doubt there's no sign of that in the outdoor Heps when the balance is different ( there is a 200 and 4x100, but no 500 and 1000). So there is more need for sprinters in the spring and less need for milers and halfmilers. Somehow Princeton and Cornell manage to dominate the league. The recruiting balance will probable change slightly but it won't change anything else. As long as you have coaches who run the top ranked 60m sprinter in the 400 immediately before the final of the 60 thereby guaranteeing that he will score no points nothing will change!

Cornell beats Princeton 18-3 in the 800m and 1k. Vig? what's up?

actually in the 800m, 1000m, 4 x 800m and DMR

Columbia 38, Cornell 29, Brown and Princeton 19.

Good meet for Brown and Cornell! This is where Princeton typically wins the meet.

In my opinion the real turning point in the men's meet was the hurdles. Cornell's freshman, Hairston, had run well during the season but had frequently run slower in finals than in trials; and Zeller had mostly been running in the 8.30s and 8.40s. For Hairston to come up with an 8.01 in the final was only a little surprising, but for Zeller to go 8.18 was close to a shock. The Big Red followed up by capitalizing on a tough false-start call in the dash, and were on their way.

Even so, I agree with other posters--for Cornell to have almost a Dream Day (and Princeton decidedly less so), and still win only by a point, only showcases Princeton's potential. Props to CU for getting the job done, but IMHO Princeton remains the team to beat. Outdoors, Cornell will have to hope for better consistency in the throws (compared to last year)--though a 65m+ javelin thrower certainly should help!--and better production in the distance races. They'll have to get their multi men on track, too.

Agreeing with fun.: PU is the (exceptionally!) early favorite for the outdoor title.

One final note: anyone who watched Sunday's 4x800 has to regret the passing of that event from the Heps. The crowd noise was so great I had to cover my ears--what a race!

I think the turning point was the 60/800. Princeton has a sub-par 60, Cornell performs roughly as expected (i.e. dominant over Princeton). The next event, Princeton's 800 runner gets tripped with 50m to go, falls from 3rd/4th to 7th, Cornell outscores Princeton 11-0. 27-3 run in two events, and you could definitely see the Princeton 1K runners were demoralized running immediately after the 8.

Ivy Insider wrote:

I think the turning point was the 60/800. Princeton has a sub-par 60, Cornell performs roughly as expected (i.e. dominant over Princeton). The next event, Princeton's 800 runner gets tripped with 50m to go, falls from 3rd/4th to 7th, Cornell outscores Princeton 11-0. 27-3 run in two events, and you could definitely see the Princeton 1K runners were demoralized running immediately after the 8.

Yeah, let's be honest: Cornell had a good amount of luck in this one. The false start in the 60 helped a lot. So did Paternostro's not scoring.

Obviously CU also expected/hoped for some stuff that didn't happen, and they made some of their own luck. I will say that I thought it was extremely classy that both Callahan and Wade were named track MVP's--you never know whether a huge relay leg, especially a third leg, will get noticed, but evidently that 1:50 that Wade ran (for yards) in his third race of the day got people's attention.

Honestly, I thought Cornell was overreaching when they put Wade in the mile and thousand. Good thing they know more than I do.

Outdoors? I think the Big Red may do a better job this year in the distances, having more of their best races at Heps and beyond, rather than during Spring Break. That new jav guy should help. If they get their other throwers (touted recruits and returnees) going, that could be key. And Max Hairston, the freshman who won the hurdles this weekend, was also among the Ivy leaders in the 400 this season. Hmmm, I wonder what event might be in his future this spring...

BRF wrote:

Honestly, I thought Cornell was overreaching when they put Wade in the mile and thousand. Good thing they know more than I do.

I know for a fact that Wade begged his coaches to let him double/triple if you include the relays. I think he wanted to do the 3k originally but did not have any form of seed time. I don't think anyone in Ithaca is questioning that decision anymore.

Kid looked like he was marching into battle before and during his relay leg. Almost felt bad for whoever the Princeton kid he stalked for several laps let alone the Columbia leg who got swallowed up in the last lap.

Additionally, I am pretty confident Cornell's Weinlandt will be on people's radars after his surprise performances. Dominated the open 800 followed by a surreal relay leg that sealed the meet. 2 for 2 on Columbia's McFann. Anyone have a time on his leg? Had to have been faster than Wade's 1:50 based on their overall time.

Rojo (if you read this), any comments on this? I believe you coached them each for a few years.

Weinlandt I'd say wasn't much of a surprise. He won the fast heat at Terrier this winter, and ran 1:49 indoors and out last year. He is the top 800 guy in the conference.

Kettlebells wrote:

Additionally, I am pretty confident Cornell's Weinlandt will be on people's radars after his surprise performances. Dominated the open 800 followed by a surreal relay leg that sealed the meet. 2 for 2 on Columbia's McFann. Anyone have a time on his leg? Had to have been faster than Wade's 1:50 based on their overall time.

"Official" splits from the Cornell folks had Wade at 1:50.5 and Weinlandt at 1:51.0. Both of those are for yards, of course, so subtract about .8 from each to get the equivalent 800m performance.

Anybody know why Admirand did not run the 800 or the longer relays? I thought he was an 800 specialist.

banked track wrote:

Anybody know why Admirand did not run the 800 or the longer relays? I thought he was an 800 specialist.

I'd gotten the impression that they were grooming him, the entire indoor season, for the 500. This *may* (I don't know) have been in response to an injury situation, or they may have taken a look at their personnel and thought that a progression from 500 indoors to 800 outdoors made the most sense for him and for the team.

The only 800 marks I saw for him were a 1:55 and then a 1:59, his last two meets before Heps. The Big Red had about five guys who'd posted better 800 times than he had; only one or two guys had run better in the 500, and one of them (Bruno H-R) was definitely not going to run it at Heps. In essence, they looked at where Rutger was and put him in his best current event. Seems to have paid off pretty well.

In any case, I saw him after the final of the 500 and he was limping badly. (I suspect his indoor season is done.) He was not a candidate for relay duty at that point, and was obviously very upset about it. All credit to the Big Red for being able to put together two winning relays (4x4 and 4x8) without his participation--ordinarily losing an athlete of his caliber would have doomed one team's chances to win.

So do you think that the Harvard women can pull off another win at Outdoor Heps? Or will my Cornell women take their title back, like I think they can? Let the predictions come!

Big Red Big Man wrote:

So do you think that the Harvard women can pull off another win at Outdoor Heps? Or will my Cornell women take their title back, like I think they can? Let the predictions come!

Hmm. Interesting question. Naturally, I won't let simple ignorance (about both teams) keep me from forming and expressing a strong opinion...

C has a couple of holes in its lineup, but it had them outdoors last year, too, and still won Heps pretty handily: lack of short sprint speed (only a single point in the 2012 100m); weakness in the 800 (no 800 finalist last year). Between new recruits and returners, C has eight throwers on the roster, though only one threw at indoor Heps; the key will be to get some scoring in the discus (zero points last year) and/or hammer, to make up for the graduation of last year's second-place HTer. C does return three scorers from the javelin.

One gap C *did* fill: heptathlon. Holmes did a solid job indoors and should do well (and could have backup) in the outdoor event.

C has to hope to do at least as well in the longer track races as they did last year--a pretty tall order, but certainly possible, with the returning 10,000m champ, the two fastest returning steeplechasers, and a distance crew that in general is at a higher level than last year. But I think they will face fierce opposition in those events, particularly from a resurgent Princeton.

H didn't score even half as many points as C at least year's outdoor meet, but they're obviously improved in the speed events; their relays are solid; and Salander, by herself, potentially adds a big slug of points. They again should score well in the throws.

I don't think H has the potential to score the 150+ points that won the meet for C last year; but I also don't think the winning score will be as high this year. If Dartmouth, Princeton (running at home), and a healthy Brown can "cooperate" in reducing C's distance points, then H could have a shot at beating C.

I don't think they will, though. The more likely question, I think, is whether *Princeton*, this year without a top sprinter, can beat C.

All credit to the Big Red for being able to put together two winning relays (4x4 and 4x8) without his participation--ordinarily losing an athlete of his caliber would have doomed one team's chances to win.

They didn't put together two 'winning relays', they lost the 4x400!

I'm no Cornell fan, like you are, but you don't seem to be giving that Cornell women's distance crew enough credit. They go 1-2-3 at the xc heps, then do the same in the 3k and some of those same kids gave D'Agostino a good run in the 5k. Yes, Princeton did better this past weekend than at the xc Heps with a pair of runners who had excellent weekends but I would say the theme so far this year has been that D'Agostino and the Cornell crew have been at a different level than the rest of the teams. The way I saw it is that if the top Brown runners had been healthy (one is the outdoor heps 5k champ and the other made NCAAs in xc) that that would have only served to push back the "resurgent" Princeton distance crew. In fact, if anyone is resurgent I would say it is D'Agostino's teammates....they looked good this weekend, especially compared to xc. My larger point is that there has been no evidence this year that that next tier of distance runners in the heps can run with D'Agostino or the top Cornell runners. Maybe that will change in the next 8-10 weeks (and lots can change in that time span) but that was not in evidence this past weekend.

Hopefully my Columbia Lions get some people healthy (Waverly Neer!) and those good Brown runners are hoping to return....but all of those runners have got a lot of real estate to make up to catch the Cornell and Dartmouth women's distance runners right now.

I agree with your point, however, that Harvard (or even Princeton) could unseat Cornell outdoors. There is more parity in the women's heps than in a long time and scoring 150 points by any one team seems unlikely outdoors.

I think Harvard will have a harder time claiming the outdoor Heps title. Yes, they are very strong in the sprints/hurdles and have the numbers of the heptathlon. Their throwing crew could be stronger (particularly where Princeton's Julia Ratcliffe will be in her element with the hammer!) but if Adabelle could make the huge improvements with the hammer like she did with the weight throw, it could be another fun rivalry outdoors. Pole vault is always more unpredictable in the outdoor season. With the 1500m, 3k, SC, AND 5k, I don't think that with their current crew they will be able to close ANY gaps that Cornell and Princeton will be able to make.

That being said, I think it will be another close meet that will likely come back down to the relays...

I could be wrong though - outdoors doesn't officially start for another 3 weeks.

Tigerfan wrote:

All credit to the Big Red for being able to put together two winning relays (4x4 and 4x8) without his participation--ordinarily losing an athlete of his caliber would have doomed one team's chances to win.

They didn't put together two 'winning relays', they lost the 4x400!

Point taken--those last two relays won the meet, but only one won its race!