The men and women's indoor track squads completed their final tune-up before the Heptagonal meet, the Ivy League championship of track, by participating in the Boston University Valentine's Invitational.
Neither team had any field event athletes competing in the contest, as they stayed home and trained for the Heps. For the runners, this meet was a key meet since everyone ran their primary events in order to simulate the same events that will be run at the Heptagonals.
The day saw mixed results for the men, while the women's squad turned in a good showing.
For the men, the most impressive performances of the day came in the sprinting and middle distance events.
Pete Piderman '10 ran his best time of the season in the 55-meter hurdles, running a time of 7.91 seconds and coming in twelfth place. Charlie Stoebe '08, who has been impressive all year in the long sprints, placed third in the 500m dash, running a time of 1:04.21.
In the 800m run, Trevor Middleton '08 ran 1:53.84 to come in 13th out of a field of nearly 150 runners. Julian Thomas '09 broke the 50-second barrier in the 400m dash, running 49.87.
In the distance events, Pat Dooley '08 had his best showing of the year, running a time of 14:49.24 and coming in eighteenth out of a field of almost ninety runners in the 5000m run.
However, some of the distance runners performed below expectations. In addition to sluggish performances, the Big Green struggled with several medical issues on the day. Matt Davis '08 and Owen Marcotte '08 both had to pull out of the 5,000m run for medical reasons.
Men's head coach Barry Harwick '77 was satisfied with his sprinters' performances but mentioned that his distance runners' showing left something to be desired.
"I was pleased with how our sprinters took advantage of this meet to prepare for the Heptagonals. On the other hand, to be honest, I was a little disappointed at some of the distance results. We have some work to do before the Heptagonals so that we can get more productivity at the Heptagonals," Harwick said.
In addition, Dartmouth will be without one of its standout performers for Heptagonals. Mike Carmody '08, the Big Green's most potent middle-distance threat, did not see action in the meet, making it likely that he will be missing Heptagonals.
"We're 99 percent sure that Carmody won't run at Heptagonals. He's been working hard to get back on the track but having him compete at this point would be risky," Harwick said.
Carmody, who has struggled to shake off injuries all season, will be sorely missed by Dartmouth since he could have scored a significant amount of points to aid the Big Green's effort at the Heptagonals.
The Big Green women had a successful meet, and women's coach Sandy Ford-Centonze was pleased with her team's progress.
"This was a meet of personal records. We had 14 season best times, and you always want to go into championship meets getting better."
In particular, a pair of new faces had particularly impressive performances on the day.
Natalie Stoll '10 competed in the 500m dash, an event not contested at the Heptagonals on the women's side. Stoll, in her first ever indoor season, ran a time of 1:16.49 and placed fourth in the event. Stoll barely missed qualifying for the IC4A meet, as she fell short of the mark by just .04 seconds.
The IC4A meet is contested between athletes from the Eastern College Athletic Conference who have met qualifying standards.
Laura Tabor '10 ran a time of 5:02.99 in the mile, which bested her time a week ago at the Dartmouth Invitational by 11 seconds.
Other top performances on the day included Caitlin Cunningham '09 in the one mile run, where she ran 5:02.98 to edge her teammate Tabor by .01 seconds. Cunningham was 15th in the event out of nearly 100 competitors. Megan Ramirez '09 ran 2:20.10 in the 800m run, and Ali Smrcina '10 ran 10:17.06 in the 3,000m run.
Ford-Centonze was optimistic about her team's chances at the Heptagonals. This year, the women have managed to avoid the injury bug and will head into the Heptagonals without major injury issues.
"We're going to continue to train up to the Heptagonals. We're going to taper so that our kids will be fresh, so they should be ready to go," Ford-Centonze said.
The Big Green will not compete next week. On Saturday, Feb. 24 to Sunday, Feb. 25, Dartmouth will compete in the Heptagonals at the historic New York Armory in New York, N.Y.
