One Dartmouth cross country team returned to glory while the other made history at the Heptagonal Championships at Van Cortlandt Park in New York City Friday.
The Big Green men's team dominated the field with a score of 23 to win the Heptagonal title after a two-year hiatus. The women's team, stepping up from its second place finish last year, won its first Heptagonal title ever, beating out second place finisher Brown University by five points.
Friday's sweep represents only the second time in the history of the Heps that one school has won both the men's and women's titles. Cornell won both titles in 1993.
For the men's team, the taste of victory was once again sweet. After winning an unprecedented eight straight titles from 1984-1991, the men suffered heartbreaking losses in the last two seasons. This was not the case on Friday.
Co-captain Sam Wilbur '94 won the individual title in a time of 24:46 over the five mile course. At last year's race Wilbur came in second place with a time of 24.53. Co-captain Ted Fitzpatrick '95, who came in fourth last year with 25.22, was right behind him in second place with a time of 24:54. Aaron Bouplon '95 finished in fourth place, with Jack Dwyer '96 and Chris Langan '96 finishing seventh and ninth, respectively.
Coach Barry Harwick was obviously pleased with his team's performance. "The stats show that Dartmouth won the Heps with 23 points. What it doesn't show is how dominant a score that is. We would have won the meet even if the all the other Ivies had combined to form an all-star team," Harwick said.
The Big Green easily finished ahead of Princeton's 93 and Penn's 121 points. Defending champion Cornell finished fourth.
"We are absolutely thrilled to have won the Heps after two heartbreaking years of defeat, but we have bigger fish to fry in the next three weeks," Wilbur said.
The men's team, currently ranked seventh out of the 290 Division 1 schools that sponsor cross country, will compete at the IC4A's on Nov. 12 at Franklin Park in Boston. This meet will determine whether or not the Big Green will qualify for the NCAA competition in Fayetteville, Arkansas on Nov. 21.
"The IC4A'S will be tough. Georgetown is the number one team in the country according to the mythical coach's polls. We'd like to prove them wrong," Wilbur said.
"It was truly a wonderful moment being able to share a satisfying victory with the women's team. We were really psyched to see them win it," Wilbur said.
The men weren't the only ones happy to see the women win the Heptagonal title. The women were feeling pretty satisfied themselves.
"We were thrilled to win, since a Dartmouth women's team has never won the meet," Kristin Manwaring '96 said.
The women, who run a shorter race of 5,000 meters (3.1 miles), finished ahead of Brown to win the title, while defending champion Cornell finished third.
Captain Kristin Cobb '95 finished in second place to lead the Big Green with a time of 18:17, just two seconds behind winner Laura Woeller of Cornell. Cobb finished 13th in the race last year.
Freshman phenom Jenna Rogers '98 was right behind Cobb, finishing third overall. Manwaring and Kristin Pierce '96 finished 11th and 12th, respectively. Finally, Deirdre Milligan '98 finished in 18th place with a time of 19:15 for the Big Green.
"Milligan ran fifth for the team and really stepped up her performance this weekend. Scoring goes five deep, so if she didn't do as well as she did, we would not have won," Manwaring said.
Like the men's team, the women will now focus on the upcoming ECAC meet, which is the NCAA qualifying meet for the them. If the team has a good performance, it should be well represented at the University of Arkansas on Nov. 21.