The men's cross country team finished second while the women took seventh at the Ivy Heptagonal Championships in New York City on Friday. The race consisted of 12 runners from each of the eight Ivy League schools and is smaller than most other meets.
The men tallied 55 points, while the women finished with 177 points. A second-place finish for the Big Green men is their best result since 2005 when the Dartmouth men won the Championship. Last year, the men's team finished third while the women took sixth.
Ethan Shaw '12 finished in third place overall with a time of 24:23:7, earning First Team All-Ivy honors. Phil Royer '13 and co-captain Tom Robbins '11 were recognized for their finishes, 10th and 11th respectively, with Second Team All-Ivy honors. Brad Kenimer '12 and Jon Gault '13 finished in12th and 19th, respectively, for the Big Green. Gault is a member of The Dartmouth Staff.
Coach Barry Harwick said Shaw followed the team's strategy exactly. Before the race, Harwick instructed Shaw to go out with the leaders and tuck in behind them. The other runners were told to stay close to another Dartmouth guy throughout the race, Harwick said.
"Running together helps to keep the pace going when you feel tired in the middle of the race," Harwick said. The plan worked well, especially for Robbins and Kenimer, who finished only three seconds apart.
Princeton University won the race with 33 points. Columbia University had 94 points to earn third place and the University of Pennsylvania finished fourth with 118 points.
Robbins said he felt the team performed as they were expecting.
"The team ran exceptionally well and Shaw had a particularly gutsy effort," Robbins said. "In previous years, 55 points would have been good enough to win, but Princeton was exceptional this time around."
While many thought Columbia would finish second, the Big Green defeated them decisively, Harwick said.
"We exceeded our expectations Friday and ran our absolute best race of the season," Harwick said. "Princeton is a top 20 team this year and we battled to run very close with them."
On the women's side, Amy Schuman '12 paced the team with her 17:59, 18th-place finish. Hannah Rowe '14, Katelyn Walker '14, co-captain Lizzie Short '12 and Katie Sullivan '13 were the other women to score for Dartmouth.
Short said that the runners at the Heptagonal meet were rested last week during the Mayor's Cup in order to fully prepare for this Ivy Championship. This is one of the biggest meets for the team and doing well has been a part of their season goals all along, Short said in a previous interview with The Dartmouth.
Women's assistant coach Mark Coogan added that he felt his team could have done a little bit better in the meet.
"I am disappointed in how we did overall, but everyone ran faster than in the past, so that's good," he said.
Coogan added that Schuman had her one of the best finishes of her career this weekend at the Heptagonal Championships.
"We talked about how to run the race this week during practice and she ran the game plan exactly," Coogan said. "I am also proud of Walker and Rowe. They are only freshmen and I was not expecting huge things from either of them."
Princeton University took first place on the women's side with five of the top 11 runners, earning 33 points. Following the Tigers were Columbia University with 60 points at second place and Brown University came in third with 63 points.
Both teams will next compete at the NCAA Regional Championship meet at Hammonassett Park, Conn., on Nov. 13. Teams must either rank first or second in the region or get one of 13 at-large bids in order to qualify for Nationals.
Currently, the Big Green men are third in the Northeast region behind Iona College and Syracuse University. Harwick said he believes that if the men run well, they will have a chance of making it to Nationals.
"We have been running like a top 30 team in the country and deserve to go but it is hard to predict what can happen in the at-large process," he said.
Robbins added that the men's team has done the necessary work and has a chance of receiving an at-large bid if they continue to race the way they performed Friday.
"It is time for fine-tuning and mental preparation," he said. "Now we can hope for the best, but the rest is out of our hands."
The women's team must focus on "mental toughness" and what it takes to be a top team in the Ivy League, according to Coogan.
"The entire race is run in pain so you have to be able to suck it up and concentrate," Coogan said. "If a team is going to beat us, it is going to be because they are better than us, not because we get tired and beat ourselves."
