1996

Sports Statistics

Coach: Frank Haggerty

Key Players: Seniors Ian Carswell and Killian Lonergan; Junior Margaret Angell, Sophomore Margaret Schotte

1997

This was by no means the year for Harvard's men's and women's cross-country, indoor track or track and field teams. Both the men and women lacked depth in all of their seasons and had only a few top runners which consistently placed near the top in their meets.

If there was a bright spot to this subpar season, it was men's indoor and outdoor track and field co-captain Ian Carswell. His outstanding record-breaking performances gave Harvard at least some recognition in the Ivy League.

Cross-country

The annual Harvard-Yale-Princeton (H-Y-P) five-mile cross-country meet was probably the first chance to see where Harvard stood in the Ivy League. The results were discouraging for both the men and women.

The men placed third at the H-Y-P meet with a dismal score of 78, behind first-place finisher Princeton (22) and second-place Yale (34). Out of the top 15 finishers, Harvard only managed a 14th-place finish by sophomore Scott Muoio with a time of 27:16.5.

The women fared a little better than the men at the H-Y-Ps, placing second with 47 points, ahead of Yale's 70 points but well behind first-place Princeton's 19 points. Sophomore Margaret Schotte turned in a third-place finish on the 3.1 mile course with a time of 18:45.6, seven seconds ahead of junior teammate Margaret Angell, who placed sixth in the race.

The biggest event of the cross-country season is the Heptagonal Championships (Heps) in which all of the Ivy League teams compete, along with Navy. The men run a 10,000-meter course and the women run 5,000 meters. The first five Ivy finishers are elected to First Team All-Ivy and the second five are named to the Second Team All-Ivy.

Dartmouth blew away the competition on the women's side as it took the top three finishes and won the Heps title. Princeton followed close behind and Brown took third. The defending Heps champion, Dartmouth's Maribel Sanchez, was the winner with the fastest Heps time this decade, a scorching 17:28.0.

The Harvard women still hold he most Heps titles with five, but were not even close to adding another title to their bounty this year as they earned fifth place in the nine team field.

Schotte proved once again that she is Harvard's top cross-country runner with a team best 18:05.7, good enough for eighth place. Schotte was the only Harvard runner to make an All-Ivy team.