NEW YORK, N.Y. – The Harvard men's and women's cross-country teams competed at the NCAA Northeast Championships on Friday in Van Cortlandt Park, earning several automatic bids to the NCAA Championships. The men's team finished second for an automatic team bid and the women's team finished fourth.
Beginning the day with the women's 6k race,
Maia Ramsden defended her title to receive an automatic spot in the NCAA Championships as the top individual finisher. Ramsden led for a majority of the race and finished atop the standings with a time of 19:24.4. The Crimson senior finishing time was nearly 13 seconds ahead of the second-place runner.
Ella Gilson joined Ramsden inside the top-10, finishing ninth with a time of 20:03.5.
Molly Malague who ended the race at 31
st,
Zoe Cooper in 34
th,
Kristin Otervik in 65
th, and
Annelies Quinton in 67
th closed out the race for the squad. Through their six racers, the Crimson finished in fourth on the final leader board with 140 points. The Crimson were later selected as an at-large bid to the NCAA Championship at the selection show on Nov. 11.
In the men's 10k race,
Graham Blanks finished atop the leader board with a time of 29:31.6 to remain undefeated for the year. Blanks' winning time was more than eight seconds faster than the second-place finisher.
Acer Iverson and
Ben Rosa joined Blanks inside the top-10 finishing in fifth and eighth, respectively. Iverson earned his top-five finish with a time of 29:48.9 followed by
Ben Rosa clocking in at 29:54.5. The Crimson saw two more racers finish inside the top-25 with
Ferenc Kovacs checking in at 18 and
Shane Brosnan at 25.
Reed Pryor in 33rd and
Joe Ewing at 63rd closed out the race for the Crimson. With solid performances from all seven Crimson runners, Harvard finished second on the team leader board with 57 points to punch their ticket to the NCAA Championships.
Athletes finishing in the top 25 earned NCAA Division I Cross Country USTFCCCA All-Region Honors. On the men's side, five athletes earned All-Region Honors in Blanks, Iverson, Rosa, Kovacs and Brosnan. On the women's side, Ramsden and Gilson earned All-Region Honors.
Next Up
The men of Harvard cross country and
Maia Ramsden will head to the NCAA Championships on Saturday, November 18 in Charlottesville, VA.
