M. Cross Country Wins Fifth

No one has explained the recent improvement of the Harvard men’s cross country teams more eloquently than junior Nathan Shenk-Boright. When asked recently what prompted the men’s team’s turnaround, Shenk-Boright was blunt.

“We just got tired of being bad,” Shenk-Boright said.

The men’s cross country team continued its string of solid outings with a fifth-place finish at the Meet of Champions, hosted by Iona College in New York City’s Van Cortlandt Park. The women’s team was also impressive, finishing ninth at the same meet.

The unranked men’s team finished high enough to defeat two top-20 teams. No. 7 Villanova finished a surprising 12th and No. 17 Iona was 11th.

The Crimson—which came in last at Cross Country Heptagonals last year— finished ahead of three Heps teams on Saturday.

“I think we can make a huge improvement come Heps,” said sophomore Alisdair McLean-Foreman. “This is the best performance in quite a long time for the cross country team.”

Shenk-Boright had the top individual finish for the Crimson, finishing ninth with a time of 25:23.3. McLean-Foreman —running his first cross-country meet after winning the 800-meter dash at indoor Heps last year—was 19th.

“We’re really excited,”

“It was a pre-Heps meet for most of us, and seven of nine schools from last year showed up,” said Shenk-Boright. “We were really excited. We’ve worked harder.”

Captain John Friedman was the Crimson’s third-best finisher. His 25:31.9 run was good for 20th.

Harvard also defeated BC for the second time in a week. The Eagles finished tenth.

The Crimson men felt that they could ride the momentum into this weekend’s dual meet against Yale—a team that did not send its men’s team to the Bronx this weekend.

“We’ve got a really goood chance to get some good training in and be really competitive next week,” McLean-Foreman said.

The women’s team finished ninth overall. Junior Dierdre Colgan ran a 22:13.6 race, good for 51st place. She led a Crimson pack of five that finished within 30 seconds of each other.

“We didn’t have as fast a race as we would have liked,” Colgan said.

However, the team did not plan its workout schedule with the Iona meet in mind..

“We kind of trained through this one,” Colgan said.

The women’s team’s first Ivy League meet of consequence will take place this weekend at Princeton against both the Tigers and Yale.