Dartmouth's men and women's track and field teams escaped the mud and snow of Hanover this spring break, traveling to Scottsdale, Arizona to take advantage of the warmer climate before the spring season begins this weekend.
In Arizona, the squads had the opportunity to gauge their progress when they each competed in the Baldy Castillo Invitational hosted by Arizona State University on March 21-22.
The meet was not scored and will not count toward the Big Green's overall meet record.
The Arizona State Sun Devils, who compete in the Pacific 10 conference, are the newly crowned men and women's indoor track and field champions. Other schools competing at the Castillo Invitational included Kansas State, the University of New Mexico, Manhattan and Marquette University.
Charlie Stoebe '08 took third place in the 400-meter dash with a time of 48.72, a second and a half behind first-place finisher Leo Settle, an unaffiliated runner. Julian Thomas '09 finished close behind Stoebe, coming in at 48.87 for fourth place.
"Last year at this meet we both ran pretty much a second slower," Stoebe said, "The times that we have right now will probably hold up to be top five in the Ivy League, so we put ourselves in a good position at the beginning of the season."
Stoebe and Thomas joined Richard Cedrone '08 and Jamal Brown '08 on the 400-meter relay team and took fifth place at 3:15.78.
Oliver Townsend '09 finished in sixth in the 1500-meter run, clocking in at 3:52.53.
The men's best showing in the field events came from Randy McKnight '08 in the triple jump. He took second place with a final measurement of 14.93 meters.
Tyler Koskenoja '08 also posted a notable performance, provisionally qualifying for the NCAA championships with a score of 7460 in the men's decathlon.
The NCAA regional qualifying meet for the East takes place on Friday, May 30 and Saturday, May 31 at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Fla.
For the women, the 400-meter relay team of Natalie Stoll '10, Kaleigh Wood '11, Lauren Campfield '11 and Alex Tanner '11 finished second with a time of 3:55.83, five seconds of the top finish.
Stoll also took third place in the 400-meter dash, finishing in 57.81 seconds. Tanner and Wood finished fourth and sixth, respectively, in that event.
Caitlin Cunningham '09 took third place in the 3,000-meter run in 10:00.91.
In the field, Emily Daly '09 performed well, taking fourth place in the hammer throw.
On the spring training trip, most members of the track team spent their days running with a preplanned workout tailored to each individual runner's event. This strategy diverged from the team's training regime prior to the trip, when the team was preparing for the winter Heptagonals meet that took place in the beginning of March.
Over the spring trip, the Big Green teams set lofty goals for themselves before the squads compete in scored events in the coming weeks.
"For the '08s, our freshman year we finished third in the league and haven't been up there since," Stoebe said. "This year the '08s have been showing a lot of potential where we can score in a lot of events, and the only way to win Ivy League championships is to score across the board, and we have that leadership this year."
The team's last major event was winter Heps -- the Ivy League championship meet for track and field -- held at Cornell earlier this month. The men placed fourth at the event, and the women came in last place in the conference.
Dartmouth runners were victorious in two events, and Mike Carmody '08 qualified for the Eastern College Athletic Conference championships with a winning time of 1:51.86 in the 800-meter dash.
The distance medley relay team also took first place in 9:55.29. Victoria Michelotti broke the Dartmouth record for the 60-meter hurdles, running the event in 9.04 and placing tenth.
Dartmouth continues the spring season this weekend at the Tufts Invitational in Boston.
