HANOVER, N.H. – The Yale men's track and field team entered day two of the Ivy Heps Sunday in the wake of a number of promising performances. On Saturday, Matt Appel struck silver with a commanding second place in the shot put to take home Yale's first points of the competition, and Drake Prince and Winslow Atkeson both advanced to their respective Sunday finals in the 800m and mile events.
 
At 10:00 a.m., Sunday's events kicked off, and Yale eyes were rightfully glued to Appel in the weight throw. Although he was competing in his "weaker event", Appel was not going to disappoint the Bulldog base. After four of his six throws, Appel was on the fringe of the scoring positions, but with one throw Appel launched himself up the leaderboard. Pushed by the cheers of the Yale athletes who surrounded the cage, Appel did not rest on his laurels, and instead in his final throw of the day, threw another PR (almost a meter improvement compared to his pre-Heps best) and ended the day in third position, picking up six valuable points to the team. On a day where it looked like the Bulldogs would need every point they could get, Appel showed his class yet again. Over the course of the two competition days, he notched more than half of the squad's total points.
 
The team's other individual points scorer was also in the field. First-year triple jumper Brian Di Bassinga stepped up against stiff competition. This weekend was Di Bassinga's Ivy Heps debut and yet he looked as assured as any of his veteran competitors. His jumps showed impressive consistency and he finished only marginally off his personal best, ending up in third place. With three and a half years left of his Yale career, and another seven potential Ivy Championships, Di Bassinga will no doubt continue to add to his medal collection. 
 
The Bulldogs were close to having notched more points across the day. There were several big, unrewarded performances. Prince showed his trademark tenacity in the 800m, as he battled back into a race that started with him being pushed and elbowed by two separate athletes. Atkeson also did well to keep in contact with his competition in a fast and dragged-out mile race. 
 
In the 5k, the distance athletes impressed, showing grit over 20 laps of the track. Sean Kay especially showed great competitive spirit to stay with the front-runners for so much of the race; he in turn went through the 3000m mark only marginally off his lifetime best in that event.  
 
As the final competitors of the day, Yale's relay runners showed great commitment and rewarded any Yale team supporters with a barrage of fast splits and high-effort racing. Calvin Katz was a highlight in the distance medley relay, as he clocked under three minutes for the race's first leg and put the Yale team in first position. In the 4x800, Austin Montini ran the fastest split of the team, in a time of 1:53.52. The 4x800 team performance was particularly noteworthy as two of Yale's runners had already competed in earlier finals, and the other two athletes were nursing injuries. Depth and determination were exhibited for these distance athletes. 
 
The 4x400 relay rounded out the championships. Yale's sprint quartet of Andrew Farr, Simon Jupp, Jacob Kao and Aaron Miller tore around tight lane one bends, each clocking impressive splits. Their overall time, once converted to a banked track, would have been faster than Yale's current school record. Decisions will be made shortly regarding whether this squad will compete at next week's IC4A regional competition to target this record. Unfortunately, the three strong relay performances were not enough to overcome Columbia in the final moments of the meet, and so instead the Ivy League Heptagonal 2023 championships ended with Yale placing eighth. In his speech to the team, David Shoehalter, Yale's Mark T. Young '68 Director of Cross Country and Track and Field, said that "we just need to believe, and things will improve".
 
Thankfully there is a lot of upside in this team. This weekend's traveling squad was one of the youngest in recent history -- only three of Yale's competitors were seniors. And the outdoor season beckons a month away, bringing the chance to uncover the talent that remains in this Yale squad. 

Full results can be found here.