Men Harriers Take Third; Curtis Tops for Crimson

The Harvard men's cross country team finished third in a tri-meet with Brown and Northeastern held in Franklin Park Saturday.

The Crimson, led by 10th-place finisher Michael Curtis, totaled 74 points to close behind Brown (23 points) and Northeastern (40).

Brown clearly dominated the field, capturing six of the top 10 places. The Bruins were paced by sophomore Greg Whiteley, whose first-place time of 31:45 barely edged out junior teammate Chris Schille (31:46).

For Harvard, Curtis completed the 10,000-meter course in 33:19. Senior John Oja--the Crimson's top finisher at Van Cortlandt Park last weekend--crossed the line behind Curtis in 33:24, with Jon Lewis (34:04) and Brian Cann (34:49) finishing 16th and 18th, respectively.

But despite Harvard's low finishes, Curtis was pleased by Saturday's results: "We're always disappointed to lose, but this meet was encouraging in light of last week's results," he said, referring to last week's dual-meet losses to Columbia, Penn and Cornell. "Brown is one of the best teams in the New England area, and three of its top runners were within seconds of John [Oja] and myself."

"The key in meets is to go out really hard and stick with the pack, then when you're not feeling so great your teammates can help drag you along," Curtis added. "I'm convinced that there are at least three guys who are just as good as John and myself. If we can get a good pack we will be able to run solidly at Heps," he stated.

Although the harriers are concentrating on Heptagonals--to be held later this month--Curtis sees this weekend's Greater Boston Championships (GBC) as a good warmup for that event.

"The GBC's should be a good experience, because it's our only tournament-type meet before Heps. It's a lot different feeling when there are 150 people lined up at the start," he explained.