Dartmouth saw strong performances from many of its top athletes, but ultimately lacked the necessary depth to score high in the team standings. Mike Carmody '08 and Ikechi Ogbonna '06 highlighted the weekend for Dartmouth's men, claiming Ivy titles in the 800-meter and 60-meter hurdles, respectively, while Melanie Schorr '06 and Kelsey Wiegmann '06 qualified for NCAA consideration while competing in multiple events for the women.
Carmody took the Ivy title in the 800 meters in convincing fashion, outrunning his competition to clock in at 1:51.04 and win by a comfortable two-second margin.
"We took the pace out really hard," said Carmody, "and I put on a strong surge with about 300 meters to go and just distanced myself from the rest of the field."
Ogbonna had his best run of the year in winning the 60-meter hurdles, dropping over two-tenths of a second from his qualifying time to run a record-setting 7.93 seconds, good for first place.
Ogbonna's run set new meet and school records, besting the old meet record of 7.98 and the school record of 7.95 set by Mustafa Abdur-Rahim '04.
"I got into the blocks and knew I'd have a great chance to win the race if I could get to that first hurdle before the other runners," said Ogbonna, "So that's what I focused on. When the gun went off and I got to that hurdle, I knew I'd have to hold off the competition and I was fortunate enough to do it."
Dartmouth's women may have come up short in team standings, but they nonetheless had many notable performances on the weekend.
Schorr ran both the grueling 5,000 meters and 3,000 meters on back-to-back days and led Dartmouth's women in both. Her time of 16:38.81 in the 5,000 was good for third place and also met the NCAA provisional qualifying standard, giving her a chance at making the national championship meet.
Wiegmann took second in the multi-event pentathlon on Saturday with 3,769 points, meeting the NCAA provisional standard. She also cleared 5'07" to take fourth in the high jump on Sunday.
There were also two record-setting runs on the track. Victoria Michelotti '08 ran 9.07 seconds in the 60-meter hurdles to best Shaina Damm '02's Dartmouth record by 0.01 seconds, and Ashley Smith '09 destroyed Tessa Clare '05's record time of 8.23 seconds in the 60 meters, clocking in at 7.89.
Aside from Schorr, all of the Lady Green's scoring was done in the pentathlon and in the field events. Tara McNerney '09 took fourth in the high jump with a 5' 8 1/2" jump, Cassandre Tanner '08 leapt 17' 11" to finish fifth in the long jump, Jamila Smith '06 threw 46' 4 3/4" in the shot put to take second and Mattie Chatterton-Richmond '06 took sixth in the triple jump with a 38-03.50 jump. She and her sister Jadah Chatterton-Richmond '07 also competed in the pentathlon, finishing fifth and sixth, respectively.
The men had several other strong races on the weekend. Harry Norton '08 ran 4:07.49 in a third-place finish in the mile; Alec Wall '08 took second in the 5,000 meters in 14:27.90 and George McArdle '06 came in close behind, taking fourth in 14:31.64; Steve Mucchetti '06 finished fifth in the 3,000 meters in 8:17.91; Charlie Stoebe '08 took fourth in the 500 with a 1:04.85 run and sprinters Fatih Stanley '06 and Brian Evans '08 had fifth and sixth-place finishes in the 60-meter dash, posting times of 6.94 and 6.95 seconds, respectively.
Additionally, Dartmouth's distance medley team of Mucchetti, Dave Berman '09, Carmody and Norton finished in second with a combined time of 9:58.76.
Rob Kerris '06 was the sole scorer for the men in the field, taking fourth in the shot put with a 49' 6 1/2" throw.
The Heptagonal Championships mark the high point of the indoor season for most of the Big Green. While a handful of Dartmouth's athletes may opt to try to accomplish personal goals at one of a couple high-level meets next weekend, the vast majority of the team will use the week to recover and prepare for the impending start of the outdoor season. The teams will leave for spring break on March 15 and start training the following day.
"Although you don't see it in the [team] score, we had a number of school records that were set [at Heps], numerous personal records for the year, lifetime PRs that were set in the sprints overall," women's head coach Sandra Ford-Centonze said. "Everybody who competed ran a PR, some ran lifetime PRs."
Ford-Centonze said she was excited about the personal records and hopes to continue the success in the outdoor season.
"We've always been a stronger outdoor team because of the added events that we have."
