Columbia track and field secured two Ivy League titles and 16 podium finishes at the Ivy League Outdoor Heptagonal Championships on May 17. The event took place at Princeton’s Weaver Stadium.
The competition was highlighted by Haydn Brotschi winning the men’s 400-meter race with a time of 45.20 seconds, setting a personal best, program record, and marking the second fastest time in Ivy League outdoor championship history. Columbia also won the men’s 4×800-meter relay, as Nicholas Hayden, Justin Gottlieb, Matt Gatune, and Jacob Van Orden finished first in 7:21.61. This result was the sixth fastest in Columbia history and third fastest in meet history.
Brotschi joined Matthew Mazero, Zach Willen, and Max Comfere to finish third in the men’s 4×100-meter relay with a time of 40.23 seconds, breaking another program record for Columbia. On the women’s side, Caroline Schoen, Grace Carr, Meredith Wolfe, and Lucy Henkel earned silver medals in the women’s 4×800-meter relay with a time of 8:43.27.
Other notable performances included Matt Gatune placing fourth in the men’s 1500 meters (3:40.52), George Blaha finishing fifth (14:31.96) and Edward Blaha seventh (14:32.47) in the men’s 5000 meters for six team points combined; Lucy Henkel securing bronze in the women’s 800 meters (2:04.77); Madison Williams placing sixth in women’s triple jump (12.32m); Collin Moore finishing eighth in men’s high jump (1.98m); Adam Jaros taking sixth overall with a personal-best decathlon score of 5,966 points; Zayna Flynn finishing eighth among women heptathletes with top-10 results across all events; Walker Beverly narrowly missing scoring position by placing ninth overall in men’s steeplechase; Daniela Quintero earning tenth place among women’s milers.
The men’s team concluded conference championships ranked sixth overall with a total of fifty-two points while women finished eighth with twenty-three points.
With regular season competition complete for Columbia track & field athletes who qualified for NCAA events will next compete at Outdoor Prelims beginning Wednesday May 27 in Lexington Kentucky.
