The men’s and women’s indoor track teams may not have been top dogs at the Heptagonal Championships this weekend against heavyweights Princeton and Cornell, but the Bulldogs fought to make every point count in several close individual events.

At the Ivy League Championship in Ithaca, N.Y., the Eli men took third place with 58 points, compared to Cornell’s 205 and Princeton’s 149, while the women ended with 36 points, earning seventh place in a meet the Tigers won with 114 points. Lindsay Donaldson ’08 was the only Eli to win an event, taking first in the 3,000-meter run for the second year in a row.

“We are thrilled; third was pretty much what we were shooting for,” said men’s captain Dan O’Brien ’08, who earned third place in the 60-meter hurdles. “There was no way we were going to beat Cornell and Princeton this year, so we are ecstatic with the results. This is what we work for all year.”

Although the Bulldogs could not trump the Tigers and Big Red overall, several team members delivered top performances against their Ancient Eight rivals.