In most team sports, individual performances can be overshadowed by the team's successes or failures.

One of the exceptions is cross country, where a team's result does not depend on how it performs as a unit but rather on outstanding individual performances by its members.

For Harvard sophomore Ian Carswell, the cross country season was a smashing success. For the team as a whole, it was just another Harvard sports season: a finish in the middle of the pack, marked by significant improvement.

Carswell was fantastic, however.

The sophomore ran past competitors all season on his way to the NCAA Cross Country Championships in Fayetteville, Arkansas. At the championships, Carswell ran a 31:15.3, good enough for 35th place in the 185-man field.

"It was my main goal this year to go to the National Championships," Carswell said.

Carswell's stellar season was no surprise to his fellow teammates.

"I knew Ian would qualify for nationals pretty much from the beginning of the year," junior co-captain Matt Bundle said. "I knew from the first workout that he was a step above us. You could tell he had done the kind of work he needed to get to Fayetteville.

Carswell earned his spot in Fayetteville by placing fourth at the IC4A district meet Saturday, November 12, at Franklin Park.

Carswell sped through the 10-kilometer Franklin Park course in 30:42, becoming the first Crimson runner to qualify for the national meet since Paul Gompers in 1986.

Carswell added the NCAA berth to a fine season that already included All-East and All-Ivy commendations.

The rest of the Harvard men's cross country team did not fare nearly as well. The team struggled Through a mediocre year, with different individuals peaking at different times.

The Crimson's performance at the three biggest meets of every Harvard cross country season--the Harvard-Yale-Princeton triangular, Heptagonal Championships and the IC4As--showed just how frustrating a season it was.

The squad entered H-Y-Ps a the meet's defending champion. It left as the runner-up to Princeton.

Carswell, who ran the five mile course in 24:45 won the race and was followed by junior Brain Walsh, who placed fifth in 25:07 and Bundle, eighth in 25:21.