It was the Scott and Schotte show--and not much else--for the Harvard men's and women's cross-country teams this fall.

In another year of rebuilding for both squads, men's junior captain Scott Muoio and women's junior captain-elect Margaret Schotte were Harvard's top finishers in almost every meet, as the Crimson men and women struggled to eighth and seventh-place finishes, respectively, among nine teams at the Heptagonal Championships Oct. 31 in Bronx, N.Y.

Muoio Paces Men's Team

Bright spots were few and far between for the Harvard men's cross-country team, who remains light years behind powerhouses like Princeton.

There were some signs of improvement. Although Harvard beat only Yale at Heps, it was a mild improvement on last year's last-place finish, and the Elis had bested the Crimson earlier in the season at the H-Y-P double-dual meet.

Harvard was unable, however, to place a single runner in the top 25 of the season-culminating meet, which Princeton won with a record-low score.

The Crimson entered Heps coming off a disappointing ninth-place finish out of 36 competitors at the New England Championships. The team stumbled to a slow start in the five-mile race and was unable to recoup.

"We got out slow and we couldn't really recover," Muoio said. "In that big of a field, it's hard to catch up when you fall back."

While the New England Championships is only the second biggest race of the year in prestige, it is the biggest in sheer physical size.

Record: 8th/9 at Heps (men), 7th/9 at Heps (women)

Coach: Frank Haggerty '68

Highlights: Women's team finishes fifth at New England Championships.

Seniors: Unavailable

"I spent the first two miles throwing elbows, and I had to hurdle a guy who got knocked down," said sophomore David Martin.

The early meet season saw a third-place finish at the Harvard-Yale-Princeton (H-Y-P) double-dual, a seventh-place finish out of 12 teams at the Iona Meet of Champions and a second-place finish behind Brown at the Brown-Northeaster-Harvard (B-N-H) double-dual meet. The season began with a third-place finish out of 10 teams at the Fordham Invitational.