BOSTON -- The Yale women's cross country team opened the season in Franklin Park on Saturday morning at the annual Harvard-Yale-Princeton tri meet. The meet provided a great opportunity for the 11 first years to get a taste of collegiate racing and offered the returners another shot to compete against their biggest rivals. Harvard won the meet with a total of 25 points, and Harvard sophomore Maia Ramsden earned the individual title with a time of 17:48.2 for the 5k. The Bulldogs placed third in the team score and are now ready to put in a lot of good work before the Ivy Heps Championship in a month and a half.

The first mile of the race went out at a slower pace, and there was a large group in the front jostling for position. At the hill, the pack began to divide a bit and pivotal moves were made. Asserting herself amongst the top pack, senior Kosana Weir was able to lead the team with her ninth-place finish in 18:14.8. Shortly behind her, a tight pack of Bulldogs came through the finish line. Junior Kyra Pretre was Yale's second finisher with a time of 18:32.5 for 15th place. Two seconds behind was junior Julia Dvorak in 17th place. Yale's top 7 were rounded out in places 19 through 22 with junior Kathryn Rodrigues as fourth, first year Claire Archer as fifth, first year Miranda Lorsbach as sixth and senior captain Samantha Friborg as seventh. This was Friborg's first XC race since 2019, and she raced extremely well.

Overall, Saturday was a great learning experience for the Bulldogs. They will be back at Franklin Park in two weeks' time for the Coast-to-Coast Battle in Beantown. The course will be the same, so it will be a great opportunity to gauge improvement.

Saturday's results can be found at Leone Timing.