Cross Country Hopes to End 30-Year Championship Drought

The Harvard men’s and women’s cross country teams will visit Princeton, N.J. on Saturday to compete in the Ivy League Heptagonal Championships. Racing for the Ancient Eight crown, the two teams will attempt to end a 30-year title drought.

Led by junior Courtney Smith, the women’s team looks competitive for this year’s gold medal. In their last meet, the Crimson women placed 15th overall in the Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational, racing against some of the top teams in the country with Smith coming in an impressive sixth place. Freshman teammate Lisa Tertsch placed 57th.

For their efforts, Smith was named HepsTrack.com Women’s Runner of the Week, and Tersch earned the same site’s Women’s Co-Rookie of the Week award.

In the most recent USTFCCCA poll, Harvard ranks 29th in the nation and 14th for the Northeast Region. In the Saucony Flo50 rankings, meanwhile, the Crimson stands at a strong No. 14 while Smith ranks No. 20 in the nation as an individual.

Earlier this season, three of the Ivy League teams got a preview of the competition in the annual Harvard-Yale-Princeton meet. Running on the same course as Saturday’s championships, Smith claimed the individual gold in the 5,000 meter run. However, Yale claimed second through seventh place as well as the overall victory. Junior Elianna Shwayder was the eighth runner to cross the finish at the H-Y-P meet, guaranteeing Harvard’s overall placement ahead of Princeton.

“The meet this weekend is different from HYP because all the Ivy League teams are there and it's a much more serious meet,” Smith said. “I have a lot more training and good workouts under my belt, so I'm hoping to be able to improve on my performance from last time.”

At the 2015 Ivy League Heptagonal Championships, the Crimson women’s cross country team left with a seventh-place finish. Smith placed third at the meet, behind returning champion Elizabeth Bird of Princeton. Shwayder placed 25th, followed by sophomore Kathryn Gillespie at 27th. Despite the unimpressive finish, the team went on to place sixth at the NCAA Regional Championships.

Despite Princeton’s 2015 victory, the team returns only one of its top three finishers, while Harvard returns all three. If the Harvard-Yale-Princeton meet is any indication, the Bulldogs are the clear favorite. However, a strong performance by the Crimson might threaten that top spot on the podium.

On the men’s side, the young team enters this weekend without the benefit of much experience. With only one senior on the team, a lot of pressure falls on the group’s underclassmen, who are still adjusting to the intensity of collegiate running.

“Being a young team definitely makes it harder for us,” captain Brandon Price said. “Relying on a lot of underclassmen to perform is less than ideal. However, we've had great performances from each of our underclassmen this year so I know that they have the fitness to excel at Heps. All we need to do is put it all together on the same day.”

Most recently, the team split and traveled to two courses. Led by Price, one group took on the Pre-National Invitational, which is hosted by Indiana State; this same course will feature the NCAA National Championship on November 19. Meanwhile six team members spent the weekend racing on the same course as this weekend’s Ivy Championships.

The men placed third at the Harvard-Yale-Princeton meet earlier this year with seventh-, eighth- and tenth-place finishes.

Like the women’s team, the men also placed seventh at last year’s Heptagonal Championships, edging out only Brown. Sophomore Austin Gilbert is the lone returning top-40 finisher for the Crimson.

Should they advance, the teams will travel to New York for the NCAA Regional Championships on November 11.

“With cross country, most of the race is decided before the actual race day by the work that's put in through the season in practice,” Smith said. “All the awesome runs and workouts we've done together have prepared us to be ready to race, and on race day, we just have to go out and execute.”