While the top seven male and female runners on the cross country team rested for Pre-Nationals next week in Indiana, the second squads had a strong showing when they raced this past Friday in Boston's Franklin Park at the New England Championships.
The men's team placed seventh with 246 points in a field of 48 teams, putting three runners in the top 50 finishers. Martin Fagan of Providence College won the varsity race with an impressive 24:20 finish, which spurred his team onto first place with 25 points.
Sophomore Ian Marcus was the top runner for the Dartmouth men, running the 8K course in 25:17 for 19th place. Marcus was generally happy with the team's performance, saying "Our times were slow yesterday, but I think our team is very fit right now."
On Marcus' heels for the Big Green were Ross Tucker '05 and Harry Norton '08, with times of 25:45 and 25:50, respectively. Tucker, who placed 41st in a massive field of runners, seemed to agree with Marcus' assessment of the race. "The race was a little slower across the board this year, but we did our best to pick up the slack."
The Dartmouth men took the J.V. title at the meet with a near perfect score of 19 points. George McArdle '07 and Ian Gottesfeld '08, both from Dartmouth, took the top two spots in the JV race with times of 25:33 and 25:46, respectively.
On the women's side, Dartmouth placed 17th out of 45 teams. Harvard's Lindsay Sherf took first place at the New England Championships with a time of 17:22 on the 5K course, and Boston University's women won the meet with 50 points.
The top two Dartmouth finishers were senior Lili Peacock-Villada, who placed 20th in 18:34, and freshman Lauren Moser, who took 43rd in 18:59.
Peacock-Villada was enthusiastic about the team's ability to push each other to new heights. Of the race, she said, "It's a great course and it was a really nice day. We wanted to go out hard for the first mile as a pack because we all workout together well in practice. I know the group that raced today has great talent and potential for pushing each other forward."
As mentioned, the top seven runners on each team rested this weekend for the NCAA Pre-Nats meet, which will be run next week at Indiana State.
