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Penn, Cornell Claim Heps Titles
Created: 5/12/2002 5:38:45 PM
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 Click here for complete men's Heps results.
Click here for complete women's Heps results.
Heps Champions shirts are available now on Ivysport.com
An emotionally drained Charlie Powell tried to analyze the final moments of the 68th Heptagonal Games Outdoor Track & Field Championship as his Penn Quakers celebrated behind him at Ingram Field in Annapolis, Md., on Sunday.
“That is what it is all about,” the Penn coach said of the day’s final event, the 4x400m relay. “Champions must step up when the time comes. Princeton did it. They PR’ed by four or five seconds. But we came back and did it. We needed to break the meet record to win and that is exactly what we did.”
Both Penn and Princeton entered the 4x400m with 121 points and the team with the best time was going to take home the title. But the two didn’t face each other. Instead, Princeton ran an incredible 3:11.73 with Ryan Smith (pictured winning the individual 800m run) anchoring in the unseeded section.
That meant that the Quakers would need to run near record pace to win their second straight Heps title. And they did it one better, as Brian Abram, Luqman Kolade, Sam Burley and Chris Edmonds clocked a 3:10.37, which broke the Heps Outdoor record set by Navy in 1992 by .08 seconds.
That dramatic finish closed a remarkable day at the Heps Championships.
 The biggest individual highlight of the day came from Princeton’s amazing high jumper Tora Harris. Harris, who has already won NCAA Indoors and the Penn Relays this season, didn’t get into the competition until the bar was raised to 6-10. Shortly after he was jumping alone. After clearing 7-4 and with a rain storm soon to come, Harris raised the bar to 2.31 meters, which is 7-7 in English terms.
He soared over the bar on his first attempt, sending the crowd into a frenzy. That mark was not only broke a League and personal record, but it was the second-highest clearance in the world this season. He failed to get over the bar in three attempts at 7-8 1/4.
On the women’s side, the Cornell dominated the Championships, racking up 187 points, 78 more than second-place Brown.
Big Red junior Katy Jay had a stellar performance, sweeping the 100m and 200m dashes, both in near record time. Her 100m time was 11.88, the third-best in the history of the Heptagonal Games, while her 200m time -- 23.99 -- was the second-fastest at the Outdoor Championship. Jay also anchored the winning 4x100m and 4x400m relays and she was named the League’s Outstanding Performer of the Meet.
 The Men’s Outstanding Performer was Chris Lambert, Harvard’s junior sprinter. Lambert won both the 100m and 200m dashes and both times would have set Heps records, except that each was deemed wind-aided. Wind-aided marks are not eligible for record purposes. His 10.19 clocking in the 100m dash was nearly a half-second faster than his nearest competitor while his 20.68 in the 200m was nearly a half-second better than teammate Kobie Fuller, who finished second in the 200m after winning the 400m in 47.55.
Other great performances came from the Penn men. Senior Tuan Wreh was a double winner in the long and triple jumps. His triple jump victory was his sixth straight Heps triple title and this one broke a 25-year-old Heps record when he covered 16.28 meters (53-5), just two centimeters shy of an NCAA automatic qualifier. Another Quaker who missed an NCAA auto mark by centimeters was javelin thrower Brian Chaput, who won with a toss of 71.85 (235-09), just 15 centimeters shy of the standard. Another great finish came from All-American Sam Burley, who entered the bell lap in the 1500m in last place before passing everyone and winning in 3:51.38.
Several meet records fell on the women’s side. Princeton senior Lauren Simmons, a double winner in the 800m and 1500m runs, erased a 15-year-old meet standard in the 800m, finishing in 2:07.03.
Dartmouth’s Devon Haskell set a mark by winning the first ever Heps women’s steeplechase in 10:55.38. It was just the third time Haskell had ever competed in the event.
Columbia’s women broke two meet records. The first came in the javelin throw when Lindsey Stephenson broke her own record, extending it to 49.30 (161-9). The other Lion recordbreakers came in the 4x800m relay as Caryn Waterson, Meaghan Gregory, Vanessa Yonan and Erin Raggio finished in 8:49.47, just a second ahead of Cornell. Both teams were faster than the previous mark.
The final recordbreakers were Brown pole vaulter Lauren Contursi, whose 3.80 (12-5 1/2) clearance was nearly six inches better than anyone before her, and Harvard’s Nicky Grant, who celebrated her 59.59 (195-6) toss in the hammer with a leap into the Severn River, which borders the U.S. Naval Academy grounds.
In the end, the dramatic finishes and remarkable performances at the Heps Championships made this year’s event one that will be remembered for a long time to come.
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Related Schools: No Associated School
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Related Sports: Outdoor Track
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*This Article has been archived.*
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