Coach Barry Harwick and the Big Green harriers are making a trip to New York this weekend. They are hoping to return to Hanover with the Ivy League title in tow, adding yet another honor to their long list of accomplishments in this phenomenal season.
The Heptagonal Cross Country Championships will take place on Oct. 28 at Van Cortlandt Park in New York City.
The Dartmouth men are highly favored to win the meet, proving to everyone that they have, without a doubt, earned their seventh place national ranking.
The men have already beaten top contenders Brown and Princeton at other meets this season. Now they will seek to avenge Cornell, the winner of last year's title. According to Harwick, focus will be the key ingredient to a Big Green win.
"The [Heps] is always a very emotional meet for all of the teams so we will have to stay very focused to win," Harwick said.
Co-captain Sam Wilbur '94 feels confident that the Big Green will perform up to their expectations.
"Our team is training very hard and racing very well, and I think we can beat any team in the county on any given day," Wilbur said last week.
Wilbur, fellow co-captain Ted Fitzpatrick '95 and Aaron Bouplon '95 have been the driving force behind the success of this year's cross country team. The next two runners -- Jack Dwyer '96 and Chris Langan '96 -- are not far behind, as the Big Green finished at the New England meet with a tight 45 second spread.
It appears that depth will not be a problem for the future of the Big Green cross county team. Even though the team's top seven runners were resting up last weekend in preperation for the upcoming Heps, the Dartmouth "B" squad still managed to gain a third place finish at the Albany Invitational last Saturday.
A third place finish in a field of 32 schools is certainly a respectable performance. Only Williams and Yale were able to outrun the Big Green, who finished with a score of 106 behind Williams' 51 and Yale's 69.
Aaron Schumacher '98 and Jim Gerhart '98 unfolded a one-two punch to finish 13th and 15th, respectively. Kai Richter '95 finished 16th, followed by Matt Hamill '97 in 29th place and Marc Robaczynski, an exchange student from Wesleyan, in 33rd place.
