After injuries plagued the Harvard track teams last year, the new season has brought renewed hope.

Although both the Crimson men and women’s teams fell to Boston College on Saturday, Harvard had runners—and more importantly scorers—in every event. Last year, the Crimson struggled to find healthy sprinters who could grab valuable points.

During the first meet this weekend, Harvard’s performance suggested that this season might be a different story, although its size will still be an issue.

“We had several performances that surpassed expectations yesterday, but we are not a deep team,” co-captain Kristoffer Hinson said. “In fact, I think that there are around only 40 people on the roster. Without the depth, it is difficult to do well at dual meets, but we should fare better at larger meets where the points are spread out among several teams.”

Over the 15 events run on Saturday, the men lost by just two points—by a final score of 70-68—while the women fared slightly worse, falling 77-50.

Next Saturday, the Crimson hosts the Harvard Invitational.

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In the meet on Saturday, two points were the difference between first and second place.

Unfortunately for Harvard, this point-difference of one position in one race was enough to keep the squad from beating BC.

In the sprinting events, the Crimson took 15 points, winning both the 200-meter and 500-meter races. In the former, freshman William McMullen took home the victory in a time of 22.94 seconds, while junior John Ford won the longer sprint in a time of 1:07.94.

Harvard also won the 4x400-meter relay, edging BC by just two seconds.

Due to key injuries last year, Harvard’s sprinting core was depleted and it struggled to earn points in those events.

The injured include current co-captain Alasdair McLean-Foreman, Christopher Ware, and senior Andrew Tekky Jaja.

An influx of skilled freshmen—both in sprinting and long-distance events—gave the Crimson the boost it needed to stay in contention with BC.

“I feel that this is a team that will be greatly improved from a year ago,” Hinson said. “I think we’ll see a lot more guys qualify for regionals and score at the Heptagonals.”