“Dartmouth’s track is flat and very tight so it wouldn’t have been a good idea for me to run on it in light of Yale this coming weekend,” McLean-Foreman said.
In the throwing events, junior Christopher Ware grabbed fourth in the shot put 15.90 meters. Classmate James Rhodes took the same position in the weight throw with his toss of 15.20 meters.
WOMEN
Saturday could be called the night of the Freshman Four for the Harvard women.
The Crimson put together an impressive showing on the shoulders of four wins from its freshman class.
Rookie Dimma Kalu won the 60-meter dash in a time of 7.81 and the 200-meter race in 25.82. Earlier in the season, Kalu ran 7.77 for the shorter sprint and 25.13 for the longer—both of which place her as the third-best runner events in the Ivy League in those.
“I had the same sort of experience going from middle school to high school because I have always been pushed to get faster and score points for the team,” Kalu said. “I am still, however, getting used to the fact that generally people run slower on the indoor track, and it sort of feels like I am not doing as well as I personally can, but we’ll see how the season turns out.”
Classmate Erika Geihe also took seventh in the 400-meter with a time of 1:01.31—under two seconds behind the event’s winner—while Julia Rozier won the 500-meter run in 1:18.75.
With this young talent in the sprinting events—in which Harvard struggled last year because of lack of numbers and injuries—the Crimson is looking in good all around shape this season.
“We all came in with some desire to prove ourselves, and competing with and against athletes that are so much more experienced than we are just inspires us to do better,” Kalu said. “The thing I love about our team is that the upperclassmen put so much emphasis on the team aspect of track and field.”
Other first-year stand outs included freshman Sarah Bourne—who took the victory in the 3,000-meter run at 10:38.30; Lauren Walker—who took third in the 1,000-meter run, finishing at 3:02.96; and Clara Blattler—who cleared 3.36 meters to take second in the pole vault.
It was the older, more experienced athletes who made Harvard’s results an all-around impressive showing.
Maludzinski took home the victory in the 800-meter run by almost a full five seconds, crossing the line in 2:14.83 and blowing away the competition.
In the field events, junior Mary Serdakowski was second in the 60-meter hurdles, just barely missing breaking nine seconds—which she has broken this season—with a time of 9.09.
—Staff writer Gabriel M. Velez can be reached gmvelez@fas.harvard.edu.