While the women's indoor track squad remained undefeated on the season, the men's team hit a bump in the road this past weekend at a tri-meet against Ivy League rivals Yale and Columbia.
The men's and women's teams had similar days, as both squads performed well in the field events but struggled on the track. The teams finished with quite different results.
On the women's side, the Big Green emerged victorious with a score of 76 points. The Yalies stayed close, but couldn't keep up with the Big Green, finishing with 66 points. The Columbia Lions finished far behind the rest of the pack, earning a meager 39 points.
In the men's competition, the Bulldogs earned best in show with 79.5 points. The Big Green men followed with 58 points, and the Lions rounded out the scoring with 42.5 points.
The Big Green women won the meet by gaining a commanding advantage in the field events. The squad's domination of the set of competitions was almost complete. At least three Dartmouth athletes scored points for the Big Green in each event and the squad garnered 53 out of 66 possible points.
Dartmouth really flexed its muscle in the throwing events, sweeping both the shot put and the weight throw.
Captain Jamila Smith '06 led the way. For the second week in a row, she won both the shot put and the weight throw. The double-winner took first in the shot put and weight throws with efforts of 13.00m and 16.00m, respectively.
The jumpers also performed well. Tara McNerney '09 took first place in the high jump, clearing 1.65m. Cassandre Tanner '08 placed first in the long jump with a leap of 5.11m.
On the track, the Big Green had trouble scoring points in most events, but the 3,000 meter run led to a Dartmouth sweep, with Ali Smircina '10 (10:19.57) leading and trailed closely by Kristin Ricci '08 (10:20.26). The 60m hurdles was another event in which the Big Green made a strong showing, as Karen Woolley '09, Tanner, and Jadah Chatterton-Richmond '07 finished second, third and fourth respectively.
Chatterton-Richmond showed her versatility as a multi-event athlete, scoring in the hurdles, long jump, and the shot put.
Captain Melissa Machaj '07 said she was happy with the team's effort and performance this weekend.
"I think this weekend's meet at Yale went great," Machaj said. "We represented well in all of the events and the women's team was able to pull it off in the end and win the meet. There were a lot of great performances and being able to sweep all the scoring places in events like the shot and weight really gave us the advantage."
Machaj finished second in the weight throw, hurling the weight 13.72m.
The men were not able to win the meet, but there were some impressive performances from the team. In the field, Alex Lippai '08 was the winner in the weight throw. Captain Rob Kerris '07 was third in the weight throw and was also runner-up in the shot put.Randy McKnight '08 continues to impress in the jumping events, winning the triple jump and placing third in the long jump this weekend. Other notable jumping performances were from a trio of rookies, Ted Lesher '10, Mike Poppler '10 and Andrew Ching '10. The freshmen took second place in the triple (13.63m), long (6.63m) and high jumps (1.85m), respectively.
Nothing came easy on the track for Dartmouth. The lone winner on the track was Kevin Treadway '10 in the one-mile run (4:17.52). Trevor Middleton '09 was second in the 800m run, and Chris Zablocki '10 was third in the 3,000m run with a time of 8:40.87, missing second place by six-tenths of a second.
In the sprints, the day's top performances came in the longer contests. Julian Thomas '09 took third in the 400m dash in 51.29, missing second by a mere one-hundredth of a second, and Charlie Stoebe '08 placed third in the 500m dash.
Although men's head coach Barry Harwick '77 wanted his team to win, he believes the athletes can exact revenge on the Bulldogs later in the season.
"We obviously wanted to beat both Yale and Columbia but we had to settle for a split. Yale's team performed well at home and they are at their best in a small meet format. I think we still have a good shot at finishing in front of them at [the Heptagonal Championship]."
Next week, both Big Green squads will be traveling to Boston, Mass., to take part in the Boston University Terrier Classic held on Jan. 26 and 27.
