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.