Captain Alais Griffin, junior Jennifer Kearney and freshman Caitlin Hurley are suffering from patella tendinitis, injuries which have effectively ended their cross-country seasons. Back and hip problems kept freshman phenom Karen Goetze, winner of this year's Greater Boston Invitational, off the women's course.

Due to the injuries, the Crimson's line-up featured four freshmen and no seniors.

"I think the inexperienced runners got intimidated and they spread out too quickly," said Griffin. "People were thrust into new roles unexpectedly and that put a lot of pressure on them."

The decimated line-up was powerless to compete with the meet's top teams. Cornell, a top-10 team nationally, delivered another dominating performance, capturing five of the top 10 individual spots. Dartmouth made a game effort to challenge the Big Red, but came up 17 points short.

Behind Dartmouth (48 points), Princeton (94), Navy (109), Brown (123) and Pennsylvania (147) came Harvard, with 160 points.

The Crimson managed to fed off Yale (197 points) and Columbia (237 points), but the team could find little solace in this dubious accomplishment.

"Our expectation was to improve on [last year's] second-place finish but considering the circumstances, this was the best we could have done," Griffin said.

The Crimson's top women finishers included junior Meredith Fitzgerald (18th out of 76, 18:59.0), freshman Jenny Martin (21st, 19:03.9), sophomore Alexandra Delaney (38th, 19:35.3), sophomore Megan Agy (42nd, 19:43.2), and junior Kelly Benke (48th, 19:57.6).