The Harvard men's cross-country team, bouncing back from its dismal defeat last weekend in the Heps, earned a trip to the NCAA championships with a second-place finish behind Providence College in the New England Regional qualifier Saturday morning at Franklin Park.

The Crimson qualified with 64 points, just ahead of UMass and Northeastern with 69 and 71 points respectively. The victorious Providence Friars accumulated only 38 points.

The fleet-foooted senior trio of Peter Fitzsimmons, Ed Sheehan and Mark Meyer finished first for the Crimson, just as they have in every previous race this year.

Fitzsimmons and Sheehan were barely a second apart, coming home fourth and fifth behind Providence's all-American Dan Dillon and his Irish teammate Redmond Treacy, a former junior nation team member in his homeland. Meyer captured ninth, running his best race in several outings.

John Murphy finished 18th for Harvard after passing a dozen other harriers in the final half-mile. The fifth scorer for the Crimson, Rocky Moulton, regained his form of two years ago and secured the Crimson's invitation to the nationals by capturing the 31st spot.

The race got underway promptly at high noon (a few fans from Quincy House even missed the starting gun) and the star-studded field of harriers took off like a shot.

At the end of the first mile, Dillon and Treacy were running together in front of the pack, while the Crimson had four harriers in the third position (Meyer, Sheehan, Fitzsimmons and Murphy). However, by the time the leaders reached the two-mile mark, the Crimson had gotten into some hot water.

Dillon was still blazing, clocking a time close to nine minutes flat at the two-mile split and Treacy was still right behind him. However, the Harvard Herd had dropped back and Northeastern's Bruce Bickford and Mike Quinn from UMass had pulled up into the gap.

In that difficult second mile Murphy had "run into some insurmountable problems" and dropped way back of the leaders, coach Bill McCurdy said after the race. Murphy explained after the race that he had stiffened up and then tried to catch up with the pack too quickly.

"I tried to change my pace too much, and I was dazed for a mile or so," Murphy explained. "But then I started picking up the distance I had lost during the second half of the race," especially the last half-mile," he added.

With only a mile remaining, the Crimson looked like it was in fourth place, one place short of the excursion to the NCAAs. Fitzsimmons, Sheehan and Meyer were finishing in good positions, but where, oh where, could the fourth and fifth scorers be?

Enter Murphy and Moulton. Each Harvard harrier passed a competitor from one of the other teams in contention during the last mile, but Murphy and Moulton came out of nowhere.

Murphy passed 12 people in the last half-mile, sprinting by three in the home stretch. Meanwhile, Moulton kept chipping away at the slots still ahead of him, moving into 31st by the end.

"We did it, we came through under pressure and now we're on our way to Madison," Meyer said after the race.

THE TOP 25 FINISHERS

1. Dillon (Providence) 28:51.3 2. Quinn (UMass) 28:56.1 3. Treacy (P) 28:59.2 4. Fitzsimmons (Harvard) 29:08.5 5. Sheehan (H) 29:09.2 6. Kimball (BU) 29:22.4 7. Bickford (Northeastern) 29:25.4 8. Reed (P) 29:27.7 9. Meyer (H) 29:30.8 10. Quinn (P) 29:32.4 11. Kane (UConn) 29:38.2 12. Doane (N) 29:40.1 13. O-Neil (UConn) 29:43 14. Nevolis (N) 29:45.7 15. McCusker (UMass) 29:48.8 16. Pamaccione (UMass) 29:56.2 17. Walls (UMass) 29:58.7 18. Murphy (H) 30:00.1 19. Dillon (P) 30:05.2 20. Cioban (Dartmouth) 30:07.1 21. Maguire (N) 30:08.0 22. Fowler (N) 30:09 23. Doiron (UMass) 30:13 24. Hurtnett (P) 30:16.3 25. Derosa (D) 30:18.3.

OTHER HARVARD FINISHERS

31. Moulton 31:52.3 45. McNulty 50. McRoskey