Championship Central | Live Results
BRONX, N.Y. -- The Ivy League Heptagonal Cross Country Championship returns to Van Cortlandt Park, where the Harvard women and Penn men look to defend their respective titles.
The women’s race begins at 11 a.m., followed by the men’s race starts at noon. The Ivy League will have full coverage on Twitter (
@IvyLeague) and Instagram (
@ivyleaguesports). Make sure to use the hashtag #IvyHeps to be a part of the conversation of the Ivy League Heptagonal Cross Country Championships!
2017 WOMEN'S PREVIEW
Last year's team title went to Harvard, the Crimson's first championship since 1985. In 2015, the last time Ivy Heps took place at Van Cortlandt, Princeton won the championship after holding off Yale and Columbia. In 2017, it's anyone's race.
Only five of the 14 All-Ivy performers from a season ago are back, but three of those are Crimson, including sophomore Erin Dietz, who took fifth overall. She is joined by fellow returners
Lisa Tertsch (ninth) and
Elianna Shwayder (12th), who look to give Harvard back-to-back championships for the first time since it won five-straight from 1981-85.
Brown senior
Natalie Schudrowitz and Cornell senior
Erin McLaughlin are both back after receiving second-team All-Ivy honors last season. In fact, Schudrowitz has earned second-team All-Ivy each of the past two seasons.
But in order to repeat, the Crimson will have to hold off the rest of the League, including nationally ranked teams Columbia (No. 24) and Dartmouth (No. 30), as well as Princeton, which is receiving votes. The Tigers are buoyed by the return of the 2014 individual champion
Megan Curham, who did not run with the team when they won the title in 2015 at Van Cortlandt Park.
Yale, which has also spent time in the national rankings this season, placed second last year and hopes to win its first title since 2001. Penn took third last year but has to replace its top three runners, all of whom graduated. Senior
Abby Hong was the first Ivy to cross the line in the Paul Short Invitational Gold Race, placing 12th overall, and she hopes to become the first-ever Quaker to win the individual title.
2017 MEN'S PREVIEW
Penn is looking to defend its Ivy Heps title and win back-to-back outright championships for the first time in program history. Princeton is looking for a repeat performance from 2015, the Tigers’ last championship and the last time Ivy Heps took place at Van Cortlandt Park. Columbia is looking to get back on top for the first time since 2013 after a third-place finish a season ago. All story lines can only mean one thing: the 2017 Ivy League Men’s Heptagonal Cross Country Championship is a can’t-miss event.
Half of the All-Ivy runners from 2016 are back, including three from Princeton. Senior
William Paulson was the runner-up last year, and his teammate sophomore
Conor Lundy placed right behind him, while sophomore
Viraj Deokar placed 14th overall. The Tigers are in the receiving votes category of the latest USTFCCCA national poll, along with Penn.
The Quakers, meanwhile, return a pair of All-Ivy performers in seniors
Chris Luciano and
Patrick Hally, who placed ninth and 12th last season, respectively. Columbia, which last took the team title in 2013, will look to 2016 second-team All-Ivy runners sophomore Kenny Vasbinder and junior Brian Zabilski to lead the team.
Cornell and Brown each posted successful results at the Columbia Invitational held at Van Cortlandt Park, as the Big Red won the team title and Bears senior
Martin Martinez took the individual title. Dartmouth senior
Pat Gregory is competing in his first Ivy Heps since 2014; he paced his team at the Boston College Coast-to-Coast Invitational. Harvard junior
Kieran Tuntivate finished just outside of All-Ivy honors last year and hopes to improve upon his 18th-place finish.