W. Cross-Country Places Third at H-Y-P's

The Harvard women's cross country team traveled to New Jersey on Saturday, as it faced off against Princeton and Yale in a three-way battle of Ivy League rivals.

Despite receiving several strong individual performances, however, the Crimson came up short, finishing in third place overall at the meet.

Although Harvard finished a disappointing last in the competition, it was not blown out of the water by its Ancient Eight foes. The Crimson finished only one point behind the Bulldogs and just behind the Tigers.

"We finished in third, which isn't great, but we were very competitive," captain Margaret Schotte said. "We were relatively happy with finishing only one point behind Yale."

Despite the sub-par showing on Saturday, the Crimson remains optimistic heading into the rest of the season. It managed to stay competitive despite several key runners competing at less than 100 percent.

"We had some under-the-weather performances form some of our runners," Schotte said. "But we were still right there with those other teams."

Even with a few runners ill, Harvard had some good individual finishes in Saturday's meet. Schotte led the way, finishing fourth overall, and sophomore Senta Burton also ran a great race, finishing behind the captain. Junior Kate Moynihan and sophomore Mary Unsworth also had strong performances for the Crimson.

The individual performances have Harvard thinking positively as it prepares for the New England Championships this Friday at Harvard.

With a healthy squad and another week of practice under its belt, the Crimson is optimistic that it can make some noise.

"This has probably been our best team performance so far this year," Schotte said, "and the gap between our first and fifth best runners is closing. So we are really excited as we head towards our last few meets."

After the New England Championships, Harvard will begin training for the Heptagonal Championships, which are being held in New York at the end of the month.

"We'll train really hard for about two weeks for Heps," Schotte said. "Then we'll probably taper for a week and a half leading up to the meet. We are confident that we'll do well."