Baker Captures Third Place at Heps

At the 61st annual Heptagonal Games in New York, Harvard's cross-country teams put forth a respectable showing, but fell far short of team success.

Both Harvard squads had difficulty competing against the experience and deeper rosters of their opponents. The Harvard women finished eight out of nine Ivy League schools with a score of 233.Yale won the women's competition with a low score of 47.

On the men's side, the Crimson finished ninth with a total of 218, far behind the Big Green of Dartmouth, which won the meet with a score of 55.

The brightest spot for the Crimson was the success of captain Eddie Baker, who finished the hilly five-mile course with a time of 25:07, good enough for third place. Baker finished behind Brown's Enda Johnson and Dartmouth's Tom McArdle. The next two Crimson places were senior John Friedman, whose time of 26:21.1 was good enough for 50th and Brian Schoenbeck, who finished 56th with a time of 26:36.8.

Baker started the race well, leading most of the way. At the one-mile marker, Baker was neck-and-neck with Princeton's Wesley Stockard. By the time the runners hit the three mile point, Baker had pulled ahead of Stockard and held a two second lead over four runners. Those runners, who included McArdle and Johnson, would eventually pull even with Baker. Johnson made his move approximately 1000 yards before the finish line, surging in front of McArdle and Baker, to garner the first place finish.

The results for the Harvard women weren't nearly so positive. Junior LeAnn Hymas led the Crimson with a 30th place finish in a time of 18:40.5 on the 3.1-mile course. Behind her were freshman Mairead O'Callaghan who finished 44th with a time of 19:00.9 and Kate Katz whose time of 19:17.9 was good enough for 55th.

"I wasn't incredibly happy with the way I ran because I had higher hopes, but I felt that I ran the best I could," Hymas said.

Even though the team's performance was disappointing, Hymas was proud of the team's effort.

"Everyone worked so hard out there," Hymas said. "We just went out there and did the best we could,"