For those track athletes that are headed to next week's championships, this past weekend served as excellent tuneup. For those athletes who concluded their season at the New England championships with strong performances, there are many positives to build on for next season. Perhaps the biggest winners of the weekend were the complete men's and women's squads, who jumped out to early leads and fought valiantly to land finishes in the top 10.
The Big Green women's team earned a fifth-place finish as the host of the championships, while the men's squad grabbed seventh place out of 46 teams in the men's championships held in Boston. Not surprisingly, it was the field events and the long-distance runners that carried the Big Green teams, just as they have throughout the season.
The Dartmouth women earned a top-five finish as a result of two victories from Alisa Antkowiak '99 and Ashley Caro '00. Antkowiak broke the women's record in the hammer throw with a toss of 165'2" to claim the victory. The toss was more than six feet longer than the previous Big Green record, which was set by Marianne Chamberlin in 1994. Dartmouth claimed more points in the hammer event when freshman Allison Cardlin tossed 161'3", good enough for second place in school history but only fourth place at the championships.
"I didn't do very well at Heps the previous weekend, so I felt like I needed to redeem myself," Antkowiak said. "Normally I think it's hard to get psyched up for New England's, but it was a beautiful day, it was a home meet, it was a relaxed atmosphere, and it all came together."
Caro provided the other heroics for the Big Green, capturing the 10,000m in the first event of the meet. Caro's time of 38:37:13 was more than 50 seconds better than runner-up Karen Labbadia from Rhode Island.
While Caro won easily, she lamented the fact that she had no teammates running with her in the long race.
"The hardest part of the race was running without any of my teammates in the race," Caro said. "The field at New England's was not as competitive in the 10K as it had been earlier in the season, so it was nice to be able to pull away and get the victory."
Antkowiak was pleased with the performances of her teammates.
"On the whole we have been doing extremely well for the past two weeks. We all seem to be stepping up and it's really exciting to be a part of it," she said.
In Boston, the men got an early boost in the meet from sophomore Mike Regan, who scored a head-turning victory in the 10,000m which he was running for the first time in his career. Regan's victory gave Dartmouth a share of the overall lead at 17 points at the half-way point headed to Saturday.
Greg Johnston '99 kept the momentum going on the final day, sprinting to a second-place finish in the 100 meter hurdles, the highest finish in a sprint event for either the men or the women. The Big Green men also grabbed two third-place finishes courtesy of Geoff Nickerson '99 in the steeplechase and Jon Wilde '98 in the pole vault.
The New England championships were the final real-team competition of the season for the two teams, who will now send their top individuals to the ECAC (women) and IC4A (men) championships next week.
