Women's Cross Country, Led by All-American Smith, Finishes 26th at NCAA Nats

Racing in Terre Haute, Indiana against 250 of the top collegiate female runners, junior Courtney Smith finished of her successful cross-country season with a 35th place finish at the NCAA Cross Country National Championships.

Smith’s finish was the best Harvard mark since Suzanne Jones ‘91 crossed the mark in 37th place in the 1988 edition of the event. Because of her top-40 NCAA Championship finish, Smith earned USTFCCCA All-America honors, the second All-America award the Westchester, Pa. native has received. She is the sixth Harvard runner to become an All-American in the program history and the first since Lindsey Scherf ‘08 obtained the recognition her freshman campaign in 2004.

The Crimson came in 26th place overall with 551 points, again making history. This was the Harvard team’s best finish since 1983, when the team finished 13th out of a total 16 teams. The Crimson also made the national field for only the fourth time in program history, joining the 1982, 1983 and 2012 squads.

“We were a young team this year and still made history for Harvard,” Smith said. “This makes me even more excited for the potential and seasons to come.”

Starting off the race in the lead pack with the nation’s top young runners, Smith battled the harshly cold and windy condition to finish in 20:21.1 but was unable to capitalize on a strong start. After clocking in among the lead pack at the first split, Smith slowly dropped back just behind the leaders up to the third split where she sat at 17th. Unfortunately, the junior dropped 18 spots before the final 6k mark but was still able to secure the top-40 position.

Smith’s trajectory closely mirrored the team’s as well, as Harvard sat in eighth place and within striking distance of a podium finish at the first split as the scoring contingent all fell within the top-80. By the second split, the Crimson had dropped to 14th before making a slight comeback to 11th at the third split, ultimately falling to 26th.

In addition to Smith’s All-American finish, sophomore Erin Dietz placed 137th with a time of 20:59.0. Finishing their first season of collegiate racing, freshman Lisa Tertsch was right behind Deitz in 21:00.9 claiming 141st place overall, while classmate Judy Pendergast, usually the Crimson’s No.2 runner, finished 176th in 21:14.0. Junior Elianna Shwayder was the Crimson’s fifth scorer, finishing in 191st place with a time of 21:23.0.

This is the process we have been trusting,” Shwayder said. “Confidence, focus, the grind and some grit”

Karissa Schweizer of Missouri reached the finish first in 19:41.6, becoming the individual champion after unleashing a monster kick that separated her from the lead pack as they came down the chute with 250 meters left. She was followed by Erin Finn of Michigan and Anna Rohrer of Notre Dame who came in second and third with close times of 19:44.2 and 19:44.6 respectively.

Oregon, Michigan and Colorado claimed the top three overall scores, with the Ducks edging out the Wolverines by a mere point. Unlike Heps, the Crimson was unable to defeat all of the Ivy opponents in the field as Penn finished with 520 points to claim a 24th place finish. Yale finished second-to-last with 661.

While Harvard was unable to match its ranking going into the meet–the women were ranked 17th in the latest USTFCCCA poll and 12 in FloTrack’s Saucony Flo50 Poll–getting to Nationals is promising for the future. Given all five runners in the Crimson’s scoring contingent will return for at least one more year and the program boasts a strong recruiting class, Harvard could barely be cracking the surface of its potential.

“I think even though the season is over now, we feel like we've built some really awesome things,” Smith said. “The relationships, memories, friendships will continue on.”

–Staff writer Rena Simkowitz can be reached at rsimkowitz@college.harvard.edu.