The Dartmouth cross country team split the squad and raced in two separate meets this past weekend, with three of the four teams in competition winning their respective races.
Dartmouth sent men's and women's squads to the 13th annual Murray Keatinge Invitational in Maine. The two squads went to race on a misty Saturday morning, with the men taking first and the women's team placing third, both in a field of 11 teams.
With a total score of 35, the men's team was followed by Brown and Iowa, with scores of 48 and 61, respectively. The top five men finished the 8K course in under 25 minutes. Leading the squad was freshman phenom Ben True, who finished in 24:31 to take fourth. Noah Kaufman '05 and Quinn Thomas '05 were on his heels, both finishing in 24:38.
Kaufman, a senior from Madison, Wisc., was pleased with the team's performance. "I'm proud of the way we were able to start the season," he said. "We beat both the defending conference champions [Brown] and a nationally-ranked team [Iowa], and we may have picked up a point for NCAA at-large qualification."
For the women, 74 points netted them a third-place finish in the meet. Southern Methodist won the meet with 35 points, and Boston College narrowly edged out the Big Green, taking second with a score of 72.
Melanie Schorr '06 paced the Dartmouth squad. She finished the 5K course in 17:25, good for a sixth-place finish.
Both of the squads that went to the Keene State College Invitational topped the field. The women's team took first, with all of the team's top five runners coming in the top 10 overall. Strong finishes for the women included first-year Laura Moser '08's second-place finish in 19:06. Another freshman, Kristin Ricci, placed sixth with a time of 19:52.
On the men's side, the Big Green ended Keene State's five-year streak of victories, taking first place with an impressive 28 points. Keene took second place with a distant score of 44 points. Neal Graves '05 was second on the 8K course in 25:50, and freshman Grant Allen was fourth with a 26:20.
More stunning, edge-of-your-seat cross country action will take place when the team travels to Boston next weekend for the New England Championships.
