The Big Green men's and women's cross country squads ran away from their competition last weekend as both teams captured their second straight Heptagonals Championship.
For the women's race, it was all Green as Dartmouth took the top three places with solid performances from senior co-Captains Maribel Sanchez [18:00.3] and Kristin Manwaring [18:13.1] and sophomore Diedra Millgian [18:16.9].
Dartmouth became the first team ever to take the top three positions.
"It's a great feeling to repeat as the Heps winners," Manwaring said. "And it is especially nice to win by such a healthy margin. Our strategy going in to the race was to take control from the gun.. We wanted to pack our top few runners together because this is intimidating to other teams."
The strategy paid off for the women who ended with a record setting low score of 23.
Dartmouth also received key performances from Jenna Rogers '98 and Kristin Pierce '96 who placed sixth and eleventh places respectively.
"I have been told that it looked great to see a huge pack of green dominating the race from the start," Pierce said. "We knew we had to take control of the race from the start and we did."
On the men's side, winning at the Heps was nothing new. The Big Green had won the Championship eight consecutive years from 1984 to 1991
Dartmouth was led by Captain Jack Dwyer '96 who placed second in the competitive group of runners with a time of 25:13.8. Teammates Aaron Schumacher '98, Chris Langan '96 and Don Conrad '99 followed placing seventh, eighth and eleventh respectively.
All performances were key for the men who barely squeaked by Navy and Brown for the win. Dartmouth scored 63 points, just 15 points less than Navy and 16 less than Brown.
"It was truly satisfying to win again," Langan said. "Last year we ran away with it, but this year it was close. We didn't even know that we had won until about 10 minutes after the race was over when all the points were tallied."
Both the men's and women's teams will look to use the experience gained from this past weekend as they prepare for qualifying rounds of the NCAA tournament.
On the women's side, the Big Green will race in the ECAC championships in just under two weeks, while the men will compete in the IC4A's the same weekend.
Strong running in these tournaments will secure bids into the national championships in Ames, Iowa, Nov. 20.
"This season, we have been training with our focus on the upcoming championships," Rogers said regarding the women. "As long as we continue to keep everyone mentally and physically together, the strong Dartmouth team that dominated at Heps will continue to succeed in the next couple of races."
For the men, coming together will be key for success.
"Everyone on the team has run well this season, but not all on the same day," Langan said. "I think that if each of the top five runners run their best at IC's we'll place very high."
-Sarah Hood contributed to the article.
