Runners Recieve Mixed Results at Heptagonals

It might not have been the best of days for the Harvard cross country teams, but it wasn’t the worst either.

While the women’s team’s 135 points placed them sixth at the Heptagonal Championships on Friday, a men’s team frustrated by injuries finished in eighth with 180 points.

For the men, the last place result was a disappointment given the talent and individual peaks reached during the season.

In the women’s race, the Crimson finished the day just about where they expected—neither exceeding nor falling short of its team goals by a great amount.

“I’m really happy that we beat both Penn and Brown, and obviously it would have been great if we could have caught a couple more teams,” junior Laura Maludzinski said, “but realistically I think that we should be satisfied with 6th.”

The Ivy League champion—crowned Friday at Van Cortlandt Park in New York—was Columbia in both of the races.

MEN

In a sport where results are directly reliant on the physical condition of the competitor, injuries can completely cripple a team.

For Harvard, to a degree, Friday’s race was plagued by physical problems.

“This past weekend was a huge disappointment for the men’s cross country team,” captain Reed Bienvenu said. “We had a lot of talent on our team this year and...a number of different things went badly and hurt our team performance. ”

Senior Alasdair McLean-Foreman, who finished second in the Ivy League last year and one of the expected challengers for the win this year, has been hampered by a calf injury that has bothered him for much of the season.

On Friday, McLean-Foreman finished 23rd in a time of 25:31.8. Unfortunately for the Crimson, McLean-Foreman’s hurt calf was not the only nagging injury.

“Two of our other top runners had to drop out of the race this last weekend due to injury,” Bienvenu said. “One had an ankle sprain and the other…got stepped on by someone wearing spikes in the back of the leg.”

Bienvenu gave one of his best efforts on the season—improving on his finish last year by six spots and almost half a minute. His placed 11th with a time of 25:05.9—which earned him second team all-Ivy honors.

Harvard’s next best runner placed a distant 45th—freshman Ryan Hafer put in a good personal effort of 26:12.9 to finish third for the Crimson.

The other two scorers for Harvard were sophomore Sean Barrett (26:27.7) in 50th and senior Russell Leino (26:29.4) in 51st.

“Many of the guys were extremely disappointed this weekend, and will be looking to have a good race at our final meet in two weeks, the Northeast Regional meet,” Bienvenu said.

WOMEN

The Harvard women showed on Friday why their team has been steadily improving all season on the back of freshman star Lindsey Scherf.

The team improved from seventh last year to sixth this season and Scherf came through in sixth with a time of 17:25.5. Her time was just over half a second behind the fifth place finisher and 13 seconds behind the winning time posted by Caroline Bierbaum of Columbia.

Scherf’s time was the best the Crimson women’s team has posted in just under 15 years. “There was a bit of pushing around in the back hills up at the front of the pack, but she was able to focus and keep her head in the race,” Maludzinski said.

Despite the team only improving by one spot from last year, a closer look shows why they are excited by their result.

“While in terms of place our improvement may not seem huge, the scores show that there was definitely a great improvement—180 last year to 135 this year,” captain Danila Musante said. “I think it speaks really well to all the hard work, dedication, and team cohesion that are all key elements to our team this year. It’s awesome to be a part of a team that is able to change so much from the year before and still perform so well.”

Returning runners who placed well on Friday were Maludzinski—in 18th at 18:21.8—and senior Lindsey Yourman—who finished 26th with a time of 18:29.3.

“I placed better than last year, but beyond that I felt like this was one of my more mentally strong races,” Maludzinski said. “Lindsey Yourman and I really worked together through a lot of the race, and having her right there helped to get me through some of the tougher moments.”

The remaining two scorers for the Crimson were senior Rosalinda Castaneda, who battled injuries this season and still managed to finish 38th in a time of 18:47.7, and freshman Lauren Walker, who came in 47th at 19:01.0.

Both Harvard teams return to Van Cortlandt Park on the 13th of November for the NCAA Northeast Regional meet.

-- Staff writer Gabriel M. Velez can be reached at gmvelez@fas.harvard.edu.