“Paul stepped up and had his best performance of the season to help round off our team score,” Bienvenu said. “[He] is a very talented runner, and it is these kind of breakthrough performances by our freshmen that show how much young talent we have on our team.”
Women
Like the men, the Crimson women were disappointed with their team performance, but could look to a few isolated bright spots.
Harvard finished seventh, placing ahead of Brown.
“The field was tough this year,” sophomore Laura Maludzinski said. “There were a lot of good teams who had improved a ton since last year, but beating Brown was nice because they had beaten us in a race earlier in the season so it showed us that maybe we didn’t do as badly as we thought.”
Ivy League powerhouses Princeton, Dartmouth and Columbia captured 14 of the top 15 individual spots, with the Lions taking home the championship for a second straight year on the back of third-place finisher Caitlin Hickin (17:21.2 over the five-kilometer course).
Maludzinski (18:26.3) and captain Mairead O’Callaghan (18:32.0) led the Crimson to a 180-point day, finishing 26th and 28th, respectively.
Although she led Harvard on Friday, Maludzinski felt the day was not her best. Running in a pack with teammates, though, made the afternoon for her.
“Maybe I could not have finished better on that given day, but there were people who I was right behind last year and they finished in the top 12 this year, and I think that I should be up with them,” Maludzinski said. “However...it was also really great to run in a pack with some girls on my team [O’Callaghan and junior Rosalinda Castaneda], something that doesn’t happen to me too often but I feel really helps when you’re struggling going up some of the tough, long hills.”
For O’Callaghan, the race was especially sweet as she had finally recovered from an illness that had been hampering her performance. O’Callaghan finished a disappointing 117th at the NCAA Pre-Nationals two weeks ago.
“Mairead’s been very dedicated to the team over the years and it’s really great to see that pay off this year,” said senior Beverly Whelan (19:11.9).
By peaking now at the end of the cross country season, O’Callaghan is setting herself up for the indoor track season as well.
“I’m very excited to see her hard work and natural talent shine through in indoor track,” said Whelan, who is one of the captains of the women’s track team.