The Dartmouth men's and women's track and field teams competed in the finals of the third Annual Challenge Cup Championships last weekend.
Running on Friday night at the Boston Armory, the men placed third in a field of six teams. Brown and Connecticut shared the championship.
The women's team, running at home on Saturday, finished sixth. Connecticut won the Championship.
Men's Coach Barry Harwick said he was happy with the team's performance against what he called "quality competition."
He called competing in the Challenge Cup Championships a "Catch 22" situation: making the Championships is a great achievement but the quality of the competition is extremely high.
Harwick was counting on the Big Green doing well in the relay events, and they responded by winning the distance medley relay, anchored by Ryan Donovan '96, and the two-mile relay, anchored by Tim Farrell '96.
Both relay teams posted winning times fast enough to qualify them for the IC4A championships later in the season.
Aaron Culliney '96, Ted Fitzpatrick '95 and Scott Shimooka '95 turned in top individual performance for Dartmouth.
Culliney won the 500 meters with a time of 1:05.54.
Fitzpatrick, running in his first race of the season, won the 3,000 in 8:25.01. Aaron Bouplon '95 finished second, three seconds behind Fitzpatrick.
Schimooka won the pole vault clearing 16 feet on his second attempt. He said the 16 foot barrier was "a long time coming, but for some reason it really clicked," Friday night.
Shimooka said he felt comfortable vaulting in the Armory, an arena he became familiar with while working in Boston last summer.
The Big Green will return to Boston next weekend for the two-day Terrier Classic.
The Big Green women did not fare as well at the Championships. Coach Sandra Ford-Centonze said her team is still trying to fully recover from "the flu, or whatever is going around campus."
She praised her team's effort, and hope its members will recover in the next week.
Maribel Sanchez '96 said that it is better to be sick at this point in the season than later during the Championship meets.
The bright spot for the Big Green was their victory in the distance medley relay, anchored by Kristin Cobb '95. Cobb also finished second in the mile with a time of 4:53.67. Kristin Pierce '96 finished second in the 3,000 meters with a time of 10:21.93.
