The Dartmouth women's cross country team took to the its home field on the golf course Friday easily wedging out Ivy opponent, Yale.
Taking the top five spots, the Big Green shut out the Bulldogs, 15-46. Although Ivy wins are always important, for the Big Green, this race was more of a tune-up for next week's challenge at the Maine Invitational.
Coach Ellen O'Neil had wanted this race to be an exercise in team work. Her goal was to narrow the gap between the seven varsity runners.
"Our coach instructed us to use [this race] as a chance to run in groups and work together," Emily Hodgens '98 said about the new strategy.
Having planned to use the race as a learning experience for the younger runners, O'Neil held four of her strongest women out of the race to force the less seasoned girls to take lead.
Although the Big Green started in a solid group like planned, by two miles the team had broken into individuals because the freshman and sophomores lacked the ability to stay connected throughout the whole race. Dartmouth ran across the finish in single file fashion. Only the Yale runners finished as a group.
The brilliant individual performances aided to disassociated the team strategy. Jenna Rodgers '98 made running as a pack especially tough. She covered the longer than normal course only 10 seconds shy from the mark of top runners, Kristen Manwaring '96 and Maribel Sanchez '96 set at the Dartmouth Invitational last weekend. Rodgers captured the win with a time of 19:49.
Beth Crenshaw '99 and Hanna Kimbell '99 also proved Dartmouth will still be tough in years to come, finishing third and fourth, with times of 20:19 and 20:38 respectively.
The lack of pack running in the younger team members, by no means disperses the team's ability to come together the Maine Invitational this weekend.
The top four Dartmouth women, who did not race Friday, have been running tightly in the other performance this fall. When co-Captains, Manwaring and Sanchez return to the starting line, so too will the cohesive nature of the team.
The women will once again be joined by the men next weekend at Maine when both teams clash against heavy regional competition. The Big Green women, who were ranked seventeenth nationally last week, will look to protect its first national ranking of the season, while the men are still looking to break into the top 20.
