The Harvard men's and women's cross-country teams will both be sending one runner to the NCAA tournament next week.

Junior captain Edward Baker (30:21) and senior Bethany Helms (17:34) placed ninth in their respective men's and women's races at the NCAA Regional Championships on Saturday at Franklin Park, Boston. As a result, the Baker and Helms will advance to the NCAA cross-country meet at the University of Indiana on Monday, November 22.

The men's team (226 points) ran its best race of the season, placing 8th out- of 33 teams and beating Yale for the first time this year. The women's squad (228 points) was successful as well, as many runners ran personal best times on the course, helping the team to a 9th place finish.

Harvard Men

Baker's race was especially impressive because he ran ten kilometers for the first time of the season, in place of the regular eight-kilometer race run in the other meets.,

For this race, Baker had finally recovered from his sore calves, injuries he suffered two weeks ago at Heptagonals .

"I was a bit worried about this race after my disappointing race at Heps," Baker said. "In fact, I didn't even think there was a chance that I would make it to Nationals."

Baker felt strong throughout the long race and was able to pull through as the top Harvard runner. During the past two weeks, he had been doing short and fast workouts to help him improve his speed. He felt that his training at 4:40 mile intervals made the 4:50 mile pace much easier to run in the race.