Dartmouth women's cross country took third out of a field of 26 teams at the Iona Meet of Champions in Riverdale, N.Y., on Saturday. Dartmouth's three finest runners all finished in the top-ten, boosting the team to its impressive end result.
Dartmouth totaled 124 points, narrowly edging out La Salle by 3. Iona placed second with 115, trumped only by the dominant Cornell squad which finished miles ahead of the competition, with 67 points. The Big Red saw five of its runners come in between 11th and 17th place.
Captain Melanie Schorr '06 crossed the finish line in third place, first for the Big Green, with a time of 21:34.6. Hilary Dionne '07, the second Dartmouth runner to finish, completed the course in 21:55.4,.
As women's coach Maribel Sanchez Souther put it, "Schorr ran a gutsy race."
"I was happy with my race, and surprised that I was able to stay so close to the top finisher, and even close in on her in the middle of the race," said Schorr.
Susan Dunklee '08, not to be outdone by her older counterparts, finished in the top ten as well, taking eighth in 22:07.2.
"We had a good strong trio of Melanie, Hilary and Susan," said Souther. "No other team finished three in the top ten."
Caitlin Cunningham '09 and Anna Greskovich '09 both showed promising signs of things to come, rounding out the top five for the team by coming in 49th in 23:18.4, and 72nd in 23:37.6, respectively.
Despite the Dartmouth's strong finish, they are not about to rest on their laurels. "Our goal is always to make it to nationals, to be a national contender," said Souther. "It's not going to be easy, but it's realistic. We do have a lot of work to do in order to reach that goal."
Schorr agreed, saying that "the team needs to work on keeping our 4th-7th runners close together and closer to our top 3 runners. This will definitely happen as our season progresses and we gain more experience, especially since our 4th, 5th, and 7th runners are freshmen."
The team will be back in action next Saturday, traveling to nearby Keene, N.H., to compete in the Keene State Invitational.
