After a Historic Mile, Mena Scatchard ’25 Looks Toward Ivy Triple Crown

With less than two laps remaining in the women’s mile at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships in March, Mena Scatchard ’25 was running comfortably in last place. Comfortably, because that was the plan: Hang back on the inside rail, avoid jostling with the tight pack of runners, and then burst to the front with the closing speed that helped her place second in her preliminary heat the day before.

“Don’t get nervous that you’re not leading or right behind the leader, because when it comes down to it, you know you have that kick,” Scatchard said, remembering the prerace conversation she had with Princeton coach Brad Hunt.

Right on cue, Scatchard made her move, shifting outside and dashing from 10th place to third in a span of about 14 seconds. Coming around the final turn, she chased down the second-place runner, Northern Arizona’s Maggi Congdon, leaning like a sprinter at the finish line to earn runner-up honors by a 0.01-second margin.

“As wiry and as unassuming as she looks, the kid is crazy fast,” Hunt said. “Her superpower was revealed.”

Scatchard, from the tiny village of Hutton Conyers (population 240) in North Yorkshire, England, made history as the Princeton women’s program’s top finisher at an NCAA Indoor meet, adding to a stellar year that’s also included Ivy Heptagonal team championships in cross country and indoor track, a second-place individual finish at the cross country Heps, a berth in the NCAA Cross Country Championships, and indoor Heps wins in the mile and 4x800 meter relay. She holds school records in the indoor mile, indoor 3,000 meters, and outdoor 1,500 meters.

Scatchard’s journey to Princeton began with the cross country races that she and her high school classmates had to run once a year. “Everybody would hate doing it,” she said, “but I was like one of the only people who was looking forward to it. … I would just win by a mile.”

She joined a local running club, started working with a coach, and learned about track programs at American colleges through a friend who’d committed to run at Temple University. During the COVID pandemic, Princeton’s coaches did not have a chance to see Scatchard run in person, but they were impressed by her times and the video clips she sent to show her training and mechanics.

While national track audiences were introduced to Scatchard through her lightning lap at the NCAA meet, her teammates and coaches have witnessed a longer progression, from an unsung freshman earning valuable team points in her first Heps meet to an admired senior who was chosen as a captain by her teammates. “She’s just improved over the course of her entire experience,” Hunt said.

Scatchard said she has valued the way Princeton opened new doors academically. She came to college planning to study geosciences but found herself drawn to policy topics in the School of Public and International Affairs. Last summer, she traveled to India for a public health internship and later spent time doing research for the World Health Organization. She combined the two interests for her thesis project, which explores health action plans to help India deal with extreme heat caused by climate change.

Scatchard opened the outdoor track season with her first 5,000 meter race at the Sam Howell Invitational (“to explore her range,” Hunt said) and broke the school record by more than five seconds. She plans to shift back to the 1,500, with her eyes on another NCAA title bid. But her near-term goal is to help the Tigers win the Ivy League triple crown (team titles in cross country, indoor track, and outdoor track in the same academic year), a feat that the Princeton women last achieved in 2010-11.

After graduation, Scatchard will use a remaining year of cross country and outdoor track eligibility to compete as a graduate transfer at Stanford, where she will be studying education policy. While she hopes to eventually work in the U.K. government, she plans to keep competing on the track after college.

“I’m pretty focused on running right now,” she said. “I really want to see how far I can go with it.”