It was the kind of day athletes live for--sunny, light breeze and just cold enough to make the spectators wish they had brought another layer.

On Friday the women's cross country team enjoyed near perfect racing weather for the New England Women's Championship, held on their home course at Franklin Park.

The team placed an impressive seventh out of 42 teams attending the meet.

"We're thrilled," said captain Margaret Schotte, who finished first among Harvard runners. "Seventh is great."

The speedy Canadian Schootte placed 16th out of a field of 292 runners, running the 3.1-mile course in a time of 18:08. Coming to the front of the massive throng of runners early, Schotte established her place at the front of the pack by the first mile mark, and picked off runners from there to claim 16th by the end of the race.

Each varsity squad is allowed seven runners, five of whom score for points. In cross country, the low score wins, and each runner scores according to how they place, the number one runner scoring one point, and so forth.

If defense wins championships in team sports, it's "the spread" (between the first runner and the fifth) that wins cross country meets. To score well, the team needed solid performances from its other runners in addition to Schotte's swift time.

The team stepped up. Running together, junior Kate Moynihan and sophomore Senta Burton placed 47th and 49th respectively, finishing within one second of each other at 18:37 and 18:38. Following close behind, freshman Erin Leonard finished 61st with a time of 18:44; and sophomore Mary Unsworth rounded out the scorers, finishing 119th, with a time of 19:25.

The only dark spot on an otherwise successful day occurred when junior Cloey Drew injured her ankle. Drew had just made the difficult adjustment to varsity races and was running well when she was unintentionally forced off a low wall by a crowd of runners rounding the turn.

"Losing Cloey hurts, but the rest of us are still healthy, so hopefully we'll be okay," Schotte said.

The team looks next to the Heptagonal championships, held two weekends from now in New York.

There, Harvard will face runners from the Naval Academy, as well as all the Ivies, including a powerhouse Dartmouth team.

"Heps is definitely the biggest race we have in terms of team competition," Schotte said.

Then, after a weekend of rest, the team will head back to New York on Nov. 14th for the NCAA qualifiers. Schotte just barely missed qualifying last year. But she is not thinking about that now.

"Today is just the kind of day that you love to run," she said.