Crimson Unable to Solve Heptagonals

For the Harvard cross country teams, last Friday was not an easy day.

Both the men’s and women’s teams found themselves out in the cold as they finished the day in the back of the pack.

Outside of sophomore Lindsey Scherf’s performance, only one other runner on either side finished in the top thirty. Both ended the day’s race—which took place with temperatures in the mid-40s—in eighth at the Heptagonal championships, which were held this year at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx.

“Our finish was a disappointment for us,” fellow sophomore Sarah Bourne said. “We had hoped to do better, and, while there were some very good individual performances, others of us did not have very good races.”

“We were obviously pretty frustrated with the result,” junior Peter Mullen said. “Three guys who have been in our top five throughout the season were hurt and didn’t run. The guys who raced also did not run close to what they were expecting.”

Scherf paced the women for the second year in a row with her 17:22.3—which was good enough for fifth.

“I know she had some very high goals going into the race and, while her finish was very impressive, I think that she has even more potential for the upcoming NCAA regionals,” Bourne said.

Last year Scherf finished sixth, behind Caroline Bierbaum of Columbia—who also won this year’s Ivy championship with a time of 17:01.4.

Bierbaum also paced the Lions to their fourth straight Ivy title.

In second for Harvard was senior Laura Maludzinski—coming in as the Crimson’s top scorer outside of Scherf for the second year in a row. Her time this season was 18:09.8, which was good enough for 22nd place.

Bourne, freshman Lauren Walker and fellow classmate Jessica Bryant came through the line in 43rd, 46th and 48th, respectively.

On the men’s side, junior Sean Barrett was the only Harvard runner to place better than 45th. His time of 25:49.3 was 37th in the individual standings.

Barrett was followed up by two sophomores—Brian Holmquist and Andrew Lipkin—whose respective times of 26:12.9 and 26:21.7 were the 47th and 49th best times. Mullen came in 54th in a time of 26:53.6.

Dartmouth won the men’s side of the meet with sophomore Ben Truce pacing the way by taking home the individual title.

At the beginning of the season when everyone was healthy we were looking to crack the top three or four of the Ivy League,” Mullen said. “However, our team just isn’t deep enough right now to be able to sustain the loss of three of our top guys. The Ivy League was really tough this year.”

The Crimson’s will now shift its focus to NCAA Regionals in an attempt to salvage the season.

—Staff writer Gabriel M. Velez can be reached at gmvelez@fas.harvard.edu.