With the 2013 Heptagonal Championships only a few weeks away, both the Harvard men’s and women’s cross country teams were encouraged by strong individual performances across the board this weekend. Both teams pulled double duty on Saturday, with squads competing at both the elite Wisconsin Adidas Invitational and the Princeton Invitational.

The highlight for the Crimson came in the men’s race at Wisconsin. Senior standouts Maksim Korolev and James Leakos led Harvard with two top-ten performances against national competition as the team finished in 13th place, 15 spots higher than their 28th place finish last year. The women also improved, moving up to 18th from 23rd place.

Crimson harriers put forth strong showings at Princeton as well, with both teams taking ninth place overall.

WISCONSIN ADIDAS INVITATIONAL

Coming into the race at the Wisconsin Adidas Invitational this weekend, Leakos had won his last two races, cruising to victory at both the Harvard-Yale meet and the Paul Short Invitational. While Leakos finished a strong tenth overall on Saturday, it was Korolev’s day to make a statement, as the senior finished two seconds out of first against almost 300 of the top runners in the country.

“I was really pleased with the way that the guys competed,” men’s coach Jason Saretsky said. “Their training has been going really, really well for a while now, and it was really good to see them mixing it up with some of the top guys in the country.”

Only 19 seconds separated the two seniors, who have been training partners all season. In a race populated by 18 nationally ranked cross country teams, including eighth-ranked Columbia, the Crimson was the lone squad to have two runners finish in the top 10.

“Obviously, looking at the results from today at both Wisconsin and Pre-Nationals, Columbia and Princeton are clearly two of the best teams in the league,” Saretsky said. “We’re hoping to be able to mix it up with them on the men’s side [at Heps] and have a real good go at it.”

Third-ranked Northern Arizona packed it in to win the meet in a score of 121, with only 38 seconds between their first and fifth runners. Harvard finished in 13th place with a score of 364, as sophomores Tom Purnell and Chris Allen and junior Will Geiken rounded out the scoring.

On the women’s side, the team was led by captain Morgan Kelly’s eighteenth place finish. Harvard was particularly encouraged, however, by the performances of sophomore Selena Pasadyn and freshman Madeleine Ankhelyi, who finished in the fourth and fifth positions for a Crimson squad that has not established a defined top five yet this season.

“We were really looking to have a good four and five today, and I think that’s starting to emerge,” women’s coach Priscilla Bayley said. “Selena Pasadyn ran as our number four, and she ran great.… She had a tremendous effort. You could just see this look of fearlessness on her face.”

Junior Viviana Hanley and senior Emily Reese covered the 6k women’s course in 20:55 and 21:09, respectively, to finish in second and third for the Crimson. The race was won by Arizona, which took advantage of top-ranked Providence’s lack of a fifth runner to upset the Friars with a score of 117 points.

PRINCETON INVITATIONAL

With Harvard’s top runners competing in Wisconsin, the rest of the men’s and women’s teams put up impressive results on a Princeton course that the team will be running on again at Heps in just a few weeks. The breakout performance of the day came from junior Molly Renfer, who blew through the 6K course in a PR of 21:40 to take fifth place overall.

“She was very aggressive from the beginning, went straight out with the leaders, and if she’d been out with us in Wisconsin, would have been in our top six,” Bayley said. “So we’re very excited about joining everyone together at Heps in a couple weeks.”

The men’s team also performed well, as the top five all finished within 32 seconds of each other. Junior Adam Cotton led the way, finishing 42nd overall in 24:44, and was followed quickly by sophomore Johnny Marvin and junior Ryan Meehan.

“To have three guys under 25 minutes on the course that we’re going to be seeing in two weeks was really, really great,” Saretsky said. “It bodes well for our depth, so we just have to get ready for the final push.”