Junior co-captain Chas Gillespie, shown here at last year's NCAA Regionals race, posted the highest finish by a Crimson men's runner at Heps since 2001, placin gfifth with a tim eof 24:47.3 in Saturday's event.

Sophomore Claire Richardson legged out fourth place in the Heptagonal Championships at Van Cortlandt Park in New York on Friday, preventing Princeton from taking all of the top-six finishes. The women’s team finished fifth overall, while the men’s side placed sixth.

“[Harvard coach] Jason [Saretsky] had given us a strategy to go out and make our position and really work through the last part,” Richardson said. “I just kept trying to catch people.”

Sophomore Nichole Slykhous and a host of freshman also competed in the Manhattan Club Bad Boy Invitational, also at Van Cortlandt Park, on Saturday.

MANHATTAN CLUB BAD BOY INVITATIONAL

The Crimson snagged six of the top-15 spots at the Bad Boy Invitational.

Rookie Jeanne Mack took the top spot among collegiate athletes—fifth overall—crossing the line in 19:13 in the 5K race. Mack shaved off four seconds from her time at the UAlbany Invitational last month.

Slykous was the second Harvard finisher, coming in at seventh overall with a time of 19:43.

Freshmen Alison Lee, Kirsten Jorgensen, and Elizabeth Heller finished ninth, 10th, and 11th, respectively, with times of 19:52, 20:19, and 20:31. Fellow freshman Meg Looney rounded out the Crimson effort with a 13th-place time of 20:58.

On the men’s side, freshman Michael Hoffman crossed the finish line at 26:32 in the 8K race to earn 13th, while classmate Darcy Wilson seized the 22nd spot with his 27:25 finish.

“I was really pleased with the Bad Boy,” Saretsky said. “Michael Hoffman was at about the level of our seventh runner at Heps.”

HEPTAGONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS

Richardson, freshman Nicole Cochran, sophomores Meghan Houser and Jamie Olson, and junior Stacy Carlson provided the scoring for the women’s side, which took fifth at the Heptagonal Championships.

Richardson’s 17:43.0 finish was good enough to split the Tigers squad, as Princeton took the three places on either side of her.

Cochran took the 23rd spot with a time of 18:27.0, while Houser was just five spots and 4.5 seconds behind at 18:31.5.

Olson took the 29th spot with her 18:34.4 time, and Carlson’s 18:50.4 finish was good for 37th.

The Crimson women took fifth at last year’s Heptagonals, with all five scorers being freshman. With this year’s scorers also relatively young, Harvard leaves room for improvement in the experienced Ivy League field.

The men’s side dropped to sixth place—down from last year’s fifth-place showing. But the Crimson has a lot to take away from its effort, namely junior co-captain Chas Gillespie’s fifth-place finish at 24:47.3 in the 8K race. Gillespie’s placement was the highest Harvard finish at Heps since Nathan Shenk-Boright placed fifth in the 2001 event. Sophomore Dan Chenoweth also ran a top-10 race, finishing eighth with a time of 24:52.5.

“I was really pleased with how we ran up front,” Saretsky said. “I told Chenoweth to go really hard after [Princeton senior Michael] Maag and [Dartmouth senior Ben] True. I wanted him to get that kind of experience, and Gillespie really established himself as one of the top long distance runners in the league.”

Newcomer Brandon Jarrett’s 25:50.6 finish was good for 39th, while junior Stephen Chester captured 46th with a time of 26:24.5. Sophomore Ryan Neely crossed the line right behind them, rounding out the Crimson scoring with his 47th-place time of 26:24.7.

Princeton took first in both races, though the Tigers just barely beat out Columbia in the men’s race.

If nothing else, Harvard gained some valuable experience and familiarity with Van Cortlandt Park, which will host the NCAA Northeast Regional and ECAC/IC4A Championships in the next two weeks.

“It’s kind of a technical course,” Richardson said. “We’ll know the ins and outs, know where we can push harder and where we can hold back a little.”

—Staff writer Dixon McPhillips can be reached at fmcphill@fas.harvard.edu.