At this weekend's Reed Trophy women's sailing event at the Dartmouth course, a difference of one point sent one team packing and the other team onward to the national championship.

The top five teams at the two-day, ten-race event qualified for nationals, and Harvard edged MIT for the fifth spot by only one point. The Crimson was down by one point going into the last two races in the B division, but the heroic efforts of captain Cori Ermler and junior Sarah Levin reversed the points margin in Harvard's favor.

Harvard's finishes of fourth and fifth in the last two races gave it the win thanks to MIT's ninth- and second-place finishes.

At the Regis Cup last weekend, Harvard had turned in a stellar second-place finish on the same course. But Saturday, a light 3-5 knot breeze made steering and maintaining speed difficult. Yesterday, the gusts picked up to 8-10 knots, and the Harvard sailors seized upon these more favorable wind speeds.

Sailing in Division A were freshman Margaret Gill and Lauren Toretta, who were also crucial to the fifth place effort.

"We were overjoyed when the final results came back," Ermler said. "MIT was right down to the wire, and there were five other equally competitive teams alongside them."

The New England Division is regarded as the most competitive division of the seven sections in the NCAA. If Harvard can compete with the best in New England, as it has demonstrated this weekend, it has the potential to do well at nationals, which will be held at the end of May at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Fla.

"We have a lot of hard work ahead of us in these weeks of preparation, and we just want to keep a consistent focus each day at practice," Ermler said.

In preparation for nationals, the women's team will commute to Cape Cod, where it can borrow the 420-model boats that will be raced at nationals.