Men's and Women's Cross Country Teams Finish Seventh at Ivy Heps

UPDATED: November 4, 2015, at 7:13 a.m.

The Harvard cross country teams fell short of their goals of competing for an Ancient Eight title after both the men’s and women’s sides finished seventh at the Ivy League Heptagonal Championships, but the women’s team performance was anchored by another strong outing from sophomore Courtney Smith.

At Van Cortlandt Park in New York City, N.Y., the Crimson faced off against stiff competition in its last race before the NCAA regional qualifiers, including the likes of No. 17 ranked Columbia and No. 29 Penn on the men’s side and No. 20 Princeton and No. 25 Columbia on the women’s.

These seeds turned out to be well-justified, as the top-ranked teams both finished at the top of the podium by the end of the day. But while the Penn men finished with their predicted second-place result, the Yale women were able to sneak in and grab silver, leading to nationally-ranked Columbia earning third.

Finishing well behind these leaders, the Harvard men continued turned in performances reminiscent of those in other races throughout the season, while the women could not repeat their early season successes against Ivy League competitors. Ultimately, the women just missed matching their fifth-place finish in last year’s championships, while the men repeated their result.

“The races were ok, I would’ve preferred our teams to be up a bit higher, but I was proud of the way that [they] competed,” said ninth-year Crimson head coach Jason Saretsky. “I was particularly impressed with and happy with Courtney Smith competing for the win as a sophomore.”

Throughout much of the season, Smith has consistently been Harvard’s top performer and nothing changed at HEPS. Smith paced the Crimson women with a time of 20:55.9 in her six-kilometer race, placing third in the event, just a half a second behind Dartmouth’s Dana Giordano and eight seconds short of the winning mark set by Princeton’s Elizabeth Bird.

“[Smith] was a little bit disappointed [that she didn’t win], but also executed a good race plan and was really strong over the second half of the race,” Harvard coach Patrick Wales-Dinan said. “She didn’t have quite enough at the end to close the gap and finish in first. All in all, it’s a big step up from what she did last year…but there’s still work to be done.”

Smith has indeed made great strides from her freshman year, when she finished 56th in the event with a time that was 1:37 behind Giordana’s second place mark last year.

Finishing over a minute behind Smith, sophomore Elianna Shwayder’s 25th-place result was the Crimson’s next best, shortly followed by freshman Kathryn Gillespie and senior Emma Payne. Both were within seven seconds of Shwayder’s results. Junior Rachel Hampton finished off Harvard’s scoring on the day with her 50th-place finish.

Unlike the Crimson women, the men did not have an outstanding performer finishing at the top of the field, but the group had a well-rounded effort instead.

Co-captain Thomas Purnell fought his way to a 25:23.6 finish in the five-mile race, placing 24th in the field and snagged Harvard’s top result for the second year in a row. However, the time was still nearly a minute behind the mark of 24:26.4 set by pacesetter, Thomas Awad, of Penn.

Both finishing within sixteen seconds of Purnell, co-captain Chris Allen and freshman Austin Gilbert, placed 33rd and 37th, respectively. Gilbert’s time of 25:39.0 was good enough for fourth-best among all Ivy League rookies. He has continued to shine throughout his freshman campaign with the Crimson.

“Austin’s been a great freshman for us so far. He’s come in with some big expectations and he’s done really well,” Wales-Dinan said. “We’ve been pleased to have him on the team and add him to the group.”