Cross Country Continues to Rise

The Harvard men’s cross country team continued its season-long ascent with a second-place finish out of 42 teams at the New England Championships, which were held at Franklin Park in Boston this weekend.

The women’s cross country team placed fourth out of 35 teams.

Providence, who is ranked seventh nationally in both men’s and women’s cross country, won both team titles.

The Friars dominated the men’s side by taking five of the top six spots to earn the near-perfect score of 17, which would be an impressive finish in a dual meet, let alone one with 42 teams.

Harvard finished a distant second with a total of 109. Junior Matt Siedel and captain John Friedman led the Crimson finishers at seventh (24:53) and eighth (24:56) respectively, finishing at about a half minute behind the Friar leaders.

Juniors Nathan Shenk-Boright, John Traugott and Simon Holmes placed 13th, 35th and 47th, respectively, to round out the Harvard scoring.

Friedman said that while he was pleased with the improvement over last year’s 11th place finish and that second place was the best finish his team could have hoped for against Providence, the results could have been better.

“Traugott had been up late and didn’t run his best and [sophomore] Alasdair McLean-Foreman went out too fast,” Friedman said. “If we have those guys, we might have been a little closer. We definitely weren’t at the top of the game.”

McLean-Foreman has typically been among the Crimson’s top finishers this season but placed well back of the lead pack this weekend because of cramping in his leg.

“He tried to go out with the Providence runners, and his calf started cramping,” Friedman said. “He gambled a bit and it didn’t work. But it’s better to find out now than to risk it at NCAA regionals.”

Harvard’s next meet is the Heptagonal Championships, held in New York City. The team expects to drastically improve upon its last place finish from a year ago and contend for the title. Defending champion Dartmouth, Princeton and Cornell are among the other contenders.

In the women’s competition, Providence’s victory was less convincing as the Friars won with 56 points over second-placed Middlebury’s 102. Harvard with 165 points edged out Brown’s 167 for fourth place.

“We were satisfied with the performance,” said junior Melissa Tanner, who led Harvard with a 19th-place finish. “The times were a little slow, but we’re looking more towards Heps.”

The Crimson’s success against Brown, the 1999 Heptagonal champions and the 2000 runner-ups, was deceptive since the Bears chose to save their top runners.

Sophomore Mairead O’Callaghan finished right behind Tanner in 20th. Senior Katherine Rose and juniors Deirdre Colgan and Claire Nicholas were also among the Harvard scorers.

“Our times were slower due to the heat, so they weren’t neccesarily indicative of our performance,” Tanner said “But we were satisfied because we were able to stay in the lead packs from the beginning.”

The women’s Heptagonal meet is also in two weeks. Yale is the defending champion.