Men’s, Women’s Cross Country Post Similar Results

The Harvard men’s and women’s cross country team enjoyed near identical results Saturday, placing sixth and seventh, respectively, at the Iona Meet of Champions.

Harvard Men

Harvard’s team score of 207 was enough to place it in the upper half of the 26 teams and give the Crimson a respectable sixth place finish.

The Crimson was led once again by captain Matt Seidel, who finished in 14th position with a time of 25:26.2.

The Crimson, coming off a victory over Brown two weeks ago, again looked fast this weekend. Unfortunately for Harvard, three of the schools that snuck in ahead of the Crimson were league foes Cornell, Brown and Dartmouth.

“It’s nice to beat all those other guys,” Seidel said. “But it was a little bit of a setback because of the Ivy schools ahead of us.”

Following Seidel across the finish line was the surprising freshman Timothy Galeback. Galeback stuck near the front of the pack for the entire race coming away with a 26th place finish in 24:43.1.

“Galeback was the brightest spot of the whole race,” Seidel said. “The cemetery (a very large hill) at mile four separates the men from the boys and he went over it fine.”

Harvard’s finals scorers were represented by some familiar faces with senior John Traugott (47th, 26:09.0) and sophomores Reed Bienvenu (52nd, 26:15.2) and Devin Lyons-Quirk (68th, 26:30.7).

Next weekend Harvard travels to Yale in its final dual meet of the year.

Harvard Women

The women took seventh with 221 points.

The encouraging finish spoke to the resurgence of the women’s team in the wake of injuries that have plagued them in the past.

The top runner, participating in her first race of the year, was senior Melissa Tanner. She crossed the line in a time of 22:09.8, good for 16th position.

The Crimson’s second runner was also returning from injuries. Beverly Whelan, who did not participate in the loss two weeks ago to Brown crossed the finish line in 22:38.8 good for 32nd position.

A top freshman stepped up for the women as well. Laura Maludzinki powered to a 43rd place finish in 22:52.5.

Finishing out the scoring for Harvard was captain Claire Nicholas (59th, 23:12.5), who was also the top Harvard runner two weeks ago against Brown, and freshman Lindsey Crouse (71st, 23:34.1).

The Crimson women will compete at Yale next Saturday in a tri-meet with Princeton and the Elis.

—Staff writer Tyson E. Hubbard can be reached at thubbard@fas.harvard.edu.