Princeton University Athletics
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Tigers Head To Ithaca For Ivy League Heptagonal Indoor Championships
February 28, 2008 | Men's Track and Field, Women's Track and Field
Cornell's historic Barton Hall will be the site of this weekend's Ivy League Heptagonal Indoor Track & Field Championships, where the Princeton men will look for their second straight indoor title and the Tiger women will look to continue their ascent that began with a second-place finish at last year's outdoor league meet.
The meet schedule, and continuously updated results throughout the weekend, will be available at the championship website at http://therelays.blogspot.com.
The Tiger men have certainly had a strong indoor season as they look toward a repeat title, their 15th overall indoor Heps championship and their 11th title in the last 15 seasons.
Princeton's distance group, as evidenced by the team's second straight cross country Heps title in October, is one of the more talented groups in the East and is led by All-Americas Michael Maag and David Nightingale. The Tigers also have a host of candidates who could win or score big points in the field events and multi-events, such as four-time Heps champion thrower Alex Pessala, 2007 IC4A high jump champ Justin Frick and heptathlete Duane Hynes. The young Tiger sprinters, led by freshmen Meko McCray and Mike Eddy and sophomore Shafiq Kashmiri, have also improved immensely throughout the season.
Maag, who fell just short of the four-minute mile mark to weeks ago in Seattle, has the best time in the Ivies this season in both the mile and the 3,000 (7:56.40), the latter a school record. Nightingale, who won both the 3,000 and 5,000 at last year's meet, ran a 5,000-meter time at the same meet in Seattle nearly 23 seconds faster than any other Ivy runner this year.
Pessala, a junior, looks to make it 5 for 5 for his Heps career in the indoor weight and outdoor hammer, while Frick made a statement for Princeton at Penn State in early February with a career-best high jump clearance of 7 feet, 2 1/4 inches, the best in the Ivies this season. Hynes should be an NCAA qualifier in the heptathlon and could also be a factor at this meet in the long jump.
McCray, who also plays football at Princeton, ran a blistering 6.87 in the 60 meters a month ago to put himself in the conversation at Heps in that event, while Kashmiri is factor in the 200 and Eddy has the Ivies' second-best time this year in the 500, 1:03.44 in the three-way meet with Harvard and Yale two weeks ago.
The Princeton women were fourth at this meet a year ago before surging to a second-place finish at the outdoor meet two months later at Weaver Stadium. The Tigers have won six indoor Heps titles since the inception of the women's meet in 1981, the last coming in 1998, and will look to challenge a host Cornell team looking for its seventh straight indoor championship.
Again, the Tiger distance runners are the known quantity, though Heps cross country champion Liz Costello has proven to be a fast middle-distance runner this indoor season. Princeton also has a 2007 outdoor Heps champion in this meet, junior Agatha Offorjebe, who won the 400 outdoors in May and is certainly among the favorites to do so this weekend. The Tigers also have several standout freshmen who weren't around for last year's meet but are among the top performers in their events this season, including hurdlers Lauren Barber and Bianca Mathabane and shot putter Isabell von Loga, who had a huge throw just last week at the Princeton Invitational.
Costello has favored the shorter distances during the indoor season, when she ran 2:09.95 in the 800 and 2:49.98 in the 1,000, each second-best among Ivy athletes this year. She did run the mile in the tri-meet with Harvard and Yale two weeks ago, and her time was tops in the league so far this year. Classmate Christy Johnson is also fast in the mile and 3,000, while freshmen Ashley Higginson and Sarah Cummings are certainly candidates to do big things at their first Heps indoor meet.
Offorjebe has the top Ivy time so far this season in the 400, a 54.66 at Penn State a month ago, and she also is a contender to run under 25 seconds in the 200 meters as well. Barber and Mathabane have each run an 8.84 for the 60-meter hurdles this season, just a few tenths behind the league's best time.
von Loga had a toss of better than 51 feet last weekend in Jadwin Gym, nearly five feet longer than another Ivy shot putter this year and an NCAA provisional mark. Jess Kloss, a junior, is one of the league's top pole vaulters, while another freshman, Thanithia Billings, could make a splash in the weight throw.
On both the men's side, the Tiger distance medley relay, which was a big contributor to last year's Heps title, has the best time in the league so far this season, while the women's DMR ran an NCAA provisional mark at Penn State a month ago and will battle with Penn for that event at Heps. For the Tiger men, both the mile- and two-mile relays could be key events as well. Princeton has the second-best mark in the Ivies in both events this season.