To everyone, Dartmouth is a place renowned for its academic excellence. But to those who have ever sported a green and white jersey or been witness to the thrills and triumphs of the Big Green, Dartmouth is truly a place spirited by its love of sport and its pride in athletics.
Big Green sports in1996-97 were overstuffed with excitement -- while some teams were shooting for that elusive perfect season record or another Ivy title, other teams in Green were taking the nation's best athletes by storm at various national championships.
In the end, three Ivy League titles came to rest in Hanover.
Football
In the fall, the football team used the talents of the league's most proficient offense and the league's stingiest defense to rekindle a 71-year old tradition as they claimed Dartmouth's fifth perfect season ever en route to clinching the Big Green's 17th Ivy League Championship.
And in the end, the road to victory was nothing short of stunning as the Big Green recorded the first 10-0 season in Dartmouth history.
The season started with a gridiron dogfight as Dartmouth pulled off a clutch 24-22 victory in the season opener against perennial powerhouse Penn with just 19 seconds on the clock.
While Homecoming fans witnessed a 40-6 demolishing of Yale, a closer call came two weeks later at Harvard. The Crimson last-ditch 39-yard field goal effort nailed the upright and flipped wide as time expired to preserve the 6-3 Dartmouth win.
Uplifted by the strength of Smith's 139 yards on the afternoon and a 20-yard Dave Regula '98 field goal with 1:30 left, Dartmouth's defense was forced to pull the brakes on Brown QB Jason McCullough as he brought the Bears 11-yards short of another TD in the closing seconds. When the scoreboard froze, the dream of taking the Ivy title had come true as Dartmouth walked away with a 27-24 victory in one of the best college football games of the year.
The Big Green made it look all too easy as they capped off their record-setting 10-0 season with a 24-0 blowout at the final game ever to be played at Princeton's old Palmer Stadium.
Ultimately, it's perhaps fitting that Mr. Quarterback is the one who best understands his team's place in Dartmouth history. "People will remember this team," Aljancic said smiling as he lifted the title trophy above his head.
Women's soccer
While the football team certainly had a lot to be proud of, the women's soccer team didn't have anything to be disappointed about this season either as they completed an impressive 11-3-1 season record and finished second in the Ivy League.
While the season ended with a 1-0 loss to the UConn Huskies in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, the fact that the Big Green was even in the running for the national title says a lot about this tough hard-hustling unit.
As their hard-earned 14th seed in the end-of-season national polls attests, the women's soccer team could give any of the nation's top teams a run for their money.
Five games into the season, the Big Green turned the tables on the Princeton Tigers as senior standout Jenna Kurowski tallied a school record-high of nine points (4g, 1a) to push her team to a 6-1 victory.
Two weeks later, the Big Green won a clash between titans as they handed the then 11th-ranked UMass Minutewomen their first loss of the season. This time, Kurowski had to go head-to-head against her own kin as her younger sister Emma was UMass's equivalent to Dartmouth's elder Kurowski.
Men's soccer
The men's soccer team faced an uphill battle in 1996 with the loss of a strong '96 class and a schedule that would put any reputable team between a rock and a hard place. But the Big Green did their best to chisel their way to a balanced 7-8-2 overall record, 2-3-2 in the Ivies.
The squad stayed in the Ivy title hunt for the first half of the season, knocking off Penn, 2-0, playing Princeton to a 1-1 tie and whipping Yale, 5-1. But the latter half of the league schedule proved too much for the Big Green and they fell out of title contention.
The best news for the Big Green is that most of the starters from the 1996 season will return to Chase Field in the fall as juniors -- which means that their two "rebuilding seasons" are over and it'll be time for the especially talented 1999 recruiting class to prove their worth.
Field hockey
The women's field hockey team kept carrying a torch that wanted to blow out and run low on fuel throughout the 1997 season. An up-and-down season failed to show swing in any single direction and eventually left the Big Green with a 6-9 overall record, 2-4 Ivy.
The squad's two Ivy victories, one against Penn and the other against Yale, were two highlights to an otherwise frustrating season for the team which will graduate three seniors. The Big Green topped the Quakers, 6-1, to open their Ivy campaign before edging the Bulldogs, 1-0, late in the season.
The Big Green also had the luxury of settling the annual twin-states rivalry as they beat UNH and Vermont, 2-1 and 3-1, respectively.
There's a good chance that the upcoming 1997 season will be a turn-around opportunity for the field hockey team, especially when you consider the strength of the underclassmen.
Individually, Lauren Scopaz '00 had a sensational rookie campaign, leading the team in scoring with 28 points, while starting goalie Kendra Kosko '99, who came into the season with virtually no varsity experience, ended yielding a meager 1.87 goals per game.
Volleyball
The women's volleyball team put together a strong string of victories in mid-season before slipping at the final stage of their Ivy title campaign. In all, they finished 18-10 overall, 4-3 Ivy.
The Big Green's nine-game win streak propelled them past four ivy rivals -- Columbia, Cornell, Penn and Princeton -- before a squad from Brown overpowered Dartmouth and pushed the Big Green down a steep and slippery slope.
In their season-ending appearance at the Ivy League Championship Tournament, the team struggled against Harvard and Yale despite solid individual performances.
The season ended on a sour note, but with such a young team and a young program, one can't help but be impressed with the milestones attained and the goals yet to be realized.
Next season, a contingent of six '00s and four '99s will provide the baseline support for the squad.
"We have the chance to determine our future and create the kind of program we want Dartmouth volleyball to be," setter Felicity Kolp '99 said. "This season may be over, but we're not done working or dreaming."
Men's basketball
The 1997 men's hoops season brought the Big Green just close enough to see the Ivy crown but not close enough to reach out and grab it. The last time Dartmouth won the league title was in 1959, they'll have to wait one more year to see if Princeton is willing to give up the title before the turn of the century.
The Big Green, however, made the Princeton Tigers scratch and claw their way to this year's title as Dartmouth closed 18-8 overall, 10-4 Ivy -- good enough for a tie for second place in the league with Harvard.
Dartmouth made a run at the title by splitting the dreaded Princeton -Penn trip, something they had not done in 13 years.
The Big Green used dynamite sharp-shooting to scoop up a 74-70 OT victory at Penn's Palestra before dropping a narrow 57-55 decision in Princeton's Jadwin Gym where senior forward Keith Stanton's last-second jumper trickled off the rim at the buzzer.
It's hard to imagine the Big Green without its All-Ivy seniors from the 1997 class. While Lonergan capped off his career with his third consecutive First-Team All-Ivy selection, Mitchell and Brian Gilpin '97 were honored on the Second-Team and Honorable Mention rosters, respectively.
Women's basketball
After leading the Big Green through three winning seasons, racking up two Ivy titles and earning one NCAA Tourney bid, the 1996-97 season where the team finished 13-13 overall, 8-5 Ivy, seemed like a disappointment for the three seniors on the squad. But what seems isn't always the same as what actually is.
All things considered, third place in the final Ivy standings wasn't half bad considering how strong and dominant the two league leaders were. Harvard topped the league with a perfect Ivy season while Brown trailed by a pair of games to put a lock on second place.
In the very last game of the season, Dartmouth fell short of spoiling Harvard's perfect record as the Crimson earned a 85-67 victory in front of 814 fans in Lavietes Pavilion.
But there's some good that will come out of that loss for the Big Green -- it'll just make next year's starting five even hungrier for the title. "Seeing Harvard cut down the nets after the game really touched me so deep," guard Courtney Banghart '00 said. "I think it made us want next year's title even more."
And next season looks especially bright as all four of Dartmouth's All-Ivy honorees will be returning. In addition to Tortolani, Honorable Mentions Nicci Rinaldi '99 and Erin Rewalt '99 and All-Ivy Rookie Team honoree Banghart will be back in the Green and White for the 1997-98 Ivy title campaign.
Men's hockey
Despite an altogether dismal 10-17-2 season which yielded only five ECAC victories (5-15-2 ECAC), and put Dartmouth out of the ECAC playoffs, the Big Green did have some few highlights to the 1996-97 men's hockey season.
The most brilliant three periods of the year came at the opening weeks of the season when Dartmouth played host to Vermont, one of the perennial placeholders in the national college hockey polls.
This time, the Big Green forced the Catamounts to forget about their history, their standings and their bloated pride as Dartmouth pounded Vermont, 4-1, in overstuffed Thompson Arena on November 22.
In the second round of this twin-states battle, the sites were switched but the score wound up even as the Big Green played the then 9th-ranked Catamounts to a 4-4 tie at Vermont's Gutterson Field House.
Through the final minutes of the third period, it appeared that Dartmouth would tally its first victory in Burlington since 1980. But with :52 seconds left on the clock, Vermont's Pavel Navrat spoiled that dream as he cranked a loose puck into the Dartmouth net.
While the 1996-97 season may have been a disappointment for the graduating seniors, next year promises to be different since Dartmouth will have a new coach calling the plays from the bench. Bob Gaudet '81 returned to Dartmouth after a coaching stint at Brown. He replaced the outgoing head hockey coach Roger Demment at the close of the sub-par 1996-97 campaign.
On top of that, Dartmouth will still have the team's top scorers, Dave Whitworth '98 and Ryan Chaytors '99 and Curtis Wilgosh '99 in uniform next year. In net, the future is especially promising as rookie recruits Jason Wong '00 and Eric Almon '00 consistently impressed during the 1996-97 season.
Women's hockey
Considering nobody outside Hanover had any faith in Dartmouth's women's ice hockey team at the start of the 1996-97 season, the Big Green sure surprised some people as they made it all the way to the ECAC quarter-finals before finishing the season 16-13-1 overall, 5-5 Ivy.
In the ECAC tourney, the Northeastern Huskies got the best of the Big Green as they snagged a 6-2 victory to advance to the semi-final round.
Skiing
The Dartmouth ski team overcame harsh weather conditions to claim the men's title at the Eastern Intercollegiate Skiing Association championships at the Middlebury Snow Bowl in late February.
Swimming
The Big Green swim teams were boosted by strong individual performances at Easterns this year as the both the men's and women's squads took eighth place at the year-end championship meet.
For the women, Andrea Hill '97 led the pack as she defended her EWSL title in the 200-yard breastroke with a blowout time of 2:17.48, three-tenths of a second faster than the old varsity record. Later on in the same meet, she lowered her time to 2:16.92
Baseball
The Big Green baseball team's tailspin at the end of the season wiped out a school record 16-game winning streak.
Alas, with the Big Green's final 1997 season record settled at 22-16 (11-9 Ivy), the time has come for the seniors to pass the torch to the younger players on the team. And it's a torch the '97s are proud to pass on.
This year's team will still be a top contender for the Ivy crown.
Softball
The women's softball team continued to struggle as they inched their way through their second season as a full-fledged varsity squad, finishing 8-26 overall, 1-11 Ivy.
The Big Green reached a milestone at the tail of the season as they edged the Penn Quakers, 4-3, to earn their first-ever Ivy League victory.
Men's lacrosse
The men's lacrosse team finished the year by beating Harvard 14-13 to salvage the season.
With that final victory, the Big Green closed their 1997 season 5-7 overall, 2-4 Ivy, with additional highpoints coming with their twin-states rivalry matches in which they beat Vermont, 19-13, before knocking off UNH by a score of 12-7.
Women's lacrosse
The Big Green's second Ivy title came complements of the women's lacrosse team as they amassed an impressive 10-4 overall record and went 5-1 in Ivy play to share the league championship with Princeton.
The team's toughest break came at the end when their dominance in the Ivy League was overlooked and they were passed over in the NCAA tournament selection.
Sure, the Big Green's record against their non-league and nationally ranked opponents like Penn State, James Madison and Maryland could've been better. But aside from that, everything ran close to perfection.
The early season match-up against Ivy rival Princeton was especially impressive as the Big Green topped the Tigers, 10-8, in the most critical game of the season for both teams en route to winning the league title.
But even their matches against their top-10 opponents were not so bad either. Against James Madison, Dartmouth played evenly with the Dukes, going shot for shot right up until the end when the clock played in favor a 8-7 JMU victory.
In all, six Dartmouth players were named to the 1997 All-Ivy lacrosse teams.
Tennis
The men's tennis team had an outstanding season as they claimed the Big Green's third league title of the year, tying Harvard for the 1997 EITA Championship with a 17-5 overall record, 8-1 EITA.
Sophomore doubles tandem Gabe Sauerhoff and Erich Holzer were named to the 1997 All-EITA First Team in the doubles category while Sauerhoff also won First-Team honors in the singles category as a unanimous selection.
On the women's side, the Big Green struggled with youth and inexperience as they finished 8-10 overall, 3-4 Ivy.
Track
The men's track and field team posted its best showing at the IC4A championship since 1989, as they capped off their Spring season with a fourth place finish at the meet. Adam Nelson '97 won the NCAA championship in the shotput.
The women's team, meanwhile, took 24th at the ECAC Championships, ninth at New Englands and fifth at Heptagonals.
Golf
The men's and women's teams finished third and fifth respectively at the Ivy League championships.
