M.Thinclads edged by Tigers

Harvard's Brian Walsh should be ecstatic after finishing second at the men's cross country team's annual Harvard-Yale-Princeton meet Friday in Princeton, N.J., but the freshman hasn't had much time to relish his near-victory. He's still getting over the shock.

"I'm just a freshman. I didn't really know what was going on," Walsh said. "I'm still trying to figure out what happened."

What happened at the meet, however, is simple arithmetic. Even though Walsh ran the five-mile, deceptively bumpy Princeton Battlefield course in 25:56, and even though Harvard took second, third and fourth places, the Princeton Tigers managed to pack their runners into the top spots to steal a victory in a meet Harvard had hoped to win.

Princeton finished with eight of the top 15 places to win the meet with 31 points. Harvard finished with 36, while Yale limped into third with 63 points.

"Their first guy had the race of his life. If he hadn't peaked so early, we would have pulled it out," Captain Rob Failla said.

Besides Walsh, Harvard's top finishers were as follows: senior Spencer Punter (26:03, third); senior Bill Bland (26:07, fourth); and junior Doug Lanzo (26:36, 12th).

"We're starting to run well as a pack. A little more depth would be nice, but if we keep running this way, we should crush teams like Princeton at the [Heptagonal Tournament]," Failla said.

Tiger Ambush W.X-Country

The Princeton women's cross country team played poor hosts to Harvard and Yale this weekend, using its home-course advantage to sprint to an easy victory Friday.

Princeton picked up 24 points, including three of the top five places, while Harvard managed 53 and Yale 57.

"We knew they were really strong, but we did not expect this. Princeton was on. We weren't," said Captain Karin Swartz, who had Harvard's top finish of the day (fifth) running the three-mile course in 18:32.

Other Harvard runners to place were junior Alais Griffin (18:48, sixth), sophomore Jennifer Kearney (19:15, 14th) and sophomore Megan Fritschel (19:17, 16th). This was Harvard's first loss of the season. The team is currently 8-1-1.

Ultimate Goes 1-3 at Tourney

Looks like the second-half collapse is contagious. Just as the Harvard football team is struggling to keep its momentum for a full game, so too is the Harvard ultimate frisbee team.

Against both MIT and Boston College Saturday at Tufts, Harvard ended up losing the games in the second half, dropping both contests 10-8.

"We had trouble finishing our games. We came out strong in the first half, but just lost our momentum," said Captain Daryl Norcott.

The Cabot resident said that even though Harvard is disappointed over the losses to its cross-town rivals, the Crimson did as well as it expected to during the weekend.

Harvard lost to a Boston-area club team, Ultimate Nightmare, and beat the Tufts "B" team, 13-5.

"I felt a little disappointed that we didn't win the close games. But we're playing better towards the end of the day. We were playing with more intensity," Norcott said.

Harvard will need that intensity to carry though into this week. The team plays MIT Wednesday at 4 p.m. at Harvard to decide which squad will play in the fall regional tournament.