Harvard Women

The women battled Northeastern down to the last few events, but were narrowly edged out of victory, 122 to 116 1/3.

The Huskies surged to a lead after the sprint events, as only freshman hurdler Eleanor Thompson won an event. Her time of 8.57 in the 55-meter hurdles was good enough to hold off two Northeastern runners.

Thompson, who also runs the 400-meter dash, was forced to run that race just minutes after the hurdles finals, leading to a disappointing time.

Co-captain Carrie McGraw finished third in the 200, and did not compete in the individual 400-meter event because she had been feeling under the weather earlier in the week, which affected her practice schedule.

In the middle distances, Harvard was lead by junior miler Claire Nichols, who overcame a scheduling error to finish second. Nichols raced to the start line seconds before her race, and was able to post a time of 5:17.42.

The Crimson scored well in the 800 as well, posting three of the top five finishers. Sophomore Bev Whelan took the event with a 2:18.25, edging out Crimson junior Samantha Piper by one-hundreth of a second.

The tight competition came down to a few events, and Northeastern was able to hold the Crimson off. In the distance medley, Harvard was barely defeated by Brandeis, who staged a remarkable quarter-lap comeback around the final turn to edge the Crimson relay squad by half of a second.

Co-captain Nicky Grant paced the Crimson in the field, winning the two throwing events. While her marks were down from previous competitions, they were enough to score the first-place points.

Harvard returns to Gordon this weekend to take on Yale and Princeton. The Crimson women swept H-Y-P’s last year, but expect a tough matchup from the Bulldogs this time around.