After nearly a month’s layaway from racing, the Harvard men and women’s track and field teams awoke from their winter break Saturday against Northeastern.

Beginning the longer stretch of the season, which leads up to the ECAC indoor championships on March 6-7, the men’s team fell to the Huskies 82-62 and the Crimson women followed suit with a 71-55 defeat.

Although tough individual performances abounded for both teams on Saturday, Harvard’s showed its biggest weakness in the sprinting and field events.

“I can’t really say that the loss was disappointing, simply because we just don’t have enough warm bodies in the sprints,” said sophomore Timothy Galebach.

Harvard will prepare for upcoming meets against Ivy and ECAC rivals, starting on Jan. 31 as they host Cornell and Brown in a tri-team meet.

Men

The Crimson men absolutely dominated the longer distance events against Northeastern despite losing the overall contest due to a lack of athletes in any race under 500m.

“Everyone was capable of faster times but sacrificed individual performances for the team,” said junior Alasdair McLean-Foreman. “We lost the meet because we didn’t have anyone in the 60m through to 500m—if the meet had been scored using the events we actually competed in it would have been a different story.”

Leading the team on Saturday were two runners who surpassed expectations to come out so strong right now.

Galebach, who had consistent quality performances throughout the cross-country season, is still recovering from an injury, but managed to muster some points for Harvard by winning the 3000m in 8:45.56 and placing second in the mile at 4:29.69. Galebach feels like he is a few weeks of training away from running against top-flight competition.

The Crimson also received a number of points from freshman Conor Wilson, who came up just as strong by beating Galebach in the mile by nine seconds and finishing a close third to two Harvard runners in the 1000m.

“[Wilson’s] been really consistent in training. I think he should be knocking on the door of a 4:10 mile in the next month or two,” Galebach said. “I was glad to see him get a win; most freshmen don’t usually get that chance.”

The other two runners who completed Harvard’s domination in the 1000m on Saturday were McLean-Foreman—who won the race in 2:31.51—and freshman Jonathan Paul.

McLean-Foreman grabbed first-place points for the Crimson despite still feeling the effects of the flu, which he had over winter break.

“The athletes’ job is to go out there and perform to the best of their abilities,” Galebach said. “We can’t worry about if we have enough guys on the team: only the coaching staff and luck control that factor.”