Dartmouth's sailing team once again stepped up and asserted its excellence at a myriad of competitions this past weeeknd. From Yale to the Coast Guard Academy to Michigan, the Big Green competed and succeeded everywhere.
The '05s had their own Invite at the Yale Corinthian Yacht Club, and Dartmouth's A-team flat out dominated the competition. The Big Green pairing of Peter Fleming and Clementine Jamaes won four of six races on their way to a phenomenal nine-point total.
Tufts came in a distant second in the A races with 22 points while Boston University pulled up in third with 23. Needing only a solid performance in the B races to secure the overall victory, Dartmouth trotted out Garrett Holmes and Elisabeth Kreter to get the job done.
The freshman pair stayed competitive into the fifth race where a clutch second place finish virtually sealed the deal. They wound up third overall in the B races with a total of 29 points, a narrow four points behind Mitchell College who pulled into third place in the overall standings.
The serious threat came from Connecticut College's group of Nick Deano with Pete Lekek and Adolf Haffenraffer. Conn. College swept the B races and nearly overtook the Big Green for the overall, but finished three points off in the end, thanks largely to Dartmouth's second place mark in race five.
And so Dartmouth's freshmen took home the overall victory in the Freshman Invite 4. The University of Vermont and Tufts rounded out the top five after Conn. College and Mitchell College.
Also at Yale this past weekend was the Southern Series 4 races which featured 10 teams on windy seas racing eight races in each of two divisions. The Big Green sent the same tandems into battle as they did at the Freshman Invite.
The Big Green jumped out with strong performances in both divisions garnering a victory and three second place finishes between the first two races in each division. The A-division team of Fleming and James buckled down after a fifth-place mark in race three to win the division with a combined 18 points, 10 points ahead of Providence College.
The Big Green's big lead was hardly tested in the B-division, as Holmes and Kester sailed solidly after their sixth-place finish in race three, winding up in a tie with Conn College's duo of Matt Parker and Kirsten Barton for the B-Division crown. The overall title went home with Dartmouth by virtue of a 17-point victory over Tufts.
Conn. College, Rhode Island and Salve Regina rounded out the top five with the hosts, Yale, coming in sixth, 44 points behind the Big Green.
The freshmen weren't the only sailors to have a fun and victorious weekend. Out in faraway Michigan at the Cary Price Trophy regatta, Dartmouth's Greg Hammond '04 amd Lauren Padilla '05 took home a big B-division title win to boost the team to the overall title. Scott Linthicum '04 and Lindsay Marshall '02 finished fourth in the A-division.
The Big Green also competed in the Danmark Trophy regatta held at the Coast Guard Academy. The Big Green did a solid job all around, but came home in fourth overall out of 18 teams.
Scott Hogan '04, paired off with Jen Morgan '02 and Christina Lyndon '04, came in second in the A-division with four race wins out of 18. Tough finishes in races 4 and 10, both 14th place, and 12th place finishes in races 7 and 14 left the Big Green 17 points behind Brown.
Dartmouth struck back in the B-division, as Kevin Horrigan '02, teamed with Amy Loring '04 and Cindy Keppel '02, to a narrow three-point victory over Connnecticut despite a did not finish in the first race. Dartmouth's victory gave the Big Green the lead before the C-division races.
John Diskant '03 took to the seas in the C-division for Dartmouth and struggled with four straight double digit finishes in races 7-10 and wound up with an 11th-place finish. Diskant's score of 163 brought Dartmouth's total to 376, 32 points behind first-place Tufts.
Boston College and Harvard also eclipsed the Big Green while Connecticut rounded out the top five.
Dartmouth returns to action this weekend in a continued effort to assert its national dominance having received a national ranking of No. 7. Three top rivals sit in the nation's first three spots as Tufts, Harvard and BC lay claim to the top of the charts.
Dartmouth will be gunning for all three as well as Charleston, St. Mary's and Georgetown, who also sit ahead of the Big Green.
