Cross Country

The school year is only a week old, but Harvard's cross country teams have already survived two tests of skill. Barely.

In a meet that the men's squad would just as soon forget, Cornell, Penn and Columbia took their turns dealing the Crimson dual-meet defeats at New York's Van Cortlandt Park Saturday.

Host Columbia ran up a 35-20 score over Harvard, Penn handed the Crimson a 43-18 defeat and Cornell fell one point short of a perfect score with its lopsided 37-16 victory over the young and inexperienced harriers.

Harvard failed to fill the spot vacated by its number-one speedster, Paul Gompers, who took the week off to rest in preparation for the rest of the season.

John Oja, the Crimson's top runner in eighth place, explained that Harvard fell out of contention before the course's halfway point, Oja said.

On the women's side, sophomores Jody Dushay and Toby Warden led the Crimson to a second-place showing in a close match-up with Manhattan, Cornell, Rutgers and Fordham.

Fordham took top honors with 61 points, followed by Harvard (63), Manhattan (66), Cornell (67) and Rutgers (81).

Dushay sprinted to fourth place in the individual race, while Warden wound up seventh.

Women's Volleyball

The Harvard women's volleyball team split its weekend slate by defeating Boston University and losing to Wellesley in a tri-match Saturday at Wellesley.

"We were a little tired after Friday's game," Crimson Captain Maia Forman said. "The subs got some good playing time against B.U.--they did a very good job while they were in there."

Playing in a best-of-three format Harvard took the first two sets to knock off B.U. Wellesley took two of three sets to repel the spikers in the following match.

Tennis

Harvard's Bill Stanley rallied to edge Brown's Tim Donovan in A-flight singles, 3-6, 6-1, 7-5 at the Harvard-hosted New England Tournament Saturday. Donovan, the tourney's number-one seed, had defeated second-seeded Stanley twice last season.