Racing against several of the best teams in the country, the Dartmouth men's and women's cross country teams both secured top-10 finishes at the Pre-National Invitational over the weekend.
The event, which took place Sunday at Indiana State's Levern Gibson Championship Cross County Course in Terre Haute, Ind., featured an eight-kilometer race by the men's team and a six-kilometer race by the women's team.
The Big Green men raced to a 10th-place finish in a field of 36 teams, posting a score of 343 team points. The team's average finish time was 25:21.
Ethan Shaw '12 led the Big Green effort with a time of 24:44, earning him 24th place overall. John Bleday '14, Jonathan Gault '13, Phil Royer '13 and Adam Doherty '13 also scored for Dartmouth.
Bleday finished in 25:12 for 52nd place, Gault finished in 25:25 for 71st place, Royer finished in 25:36 for 86th place and Doherty finished in 25:49 for 117th place. Brad Kenimer '12 and Steve Mangan '14 rounded out the Big Green runners, placing 133rd and 156th, respectively.
Gault is a member of The Dartmouth Staff.
The University of Colorado finished the event in first place thanks to two top-10 finishes. Seniors Andrew Wacker and Richard Medina took second and fourth place, respectively, with the Buffaloes scoring just 82 points overall. The top individual runner at the Invitational was Iona College senior Leonard Korir, whose time of 23:55 paced Iona's third-place finish.
The Big Green team, which expected to do well going into the race, was disappointed with the results.
"We had a pretty poor meet a couple weeks ago in Pennsylvania and we thought we could turn things around here, but things didn't really get much better," Doherty said. "We were expecting a lot more out of ourselves coming into this meet."
Several factors may have contributed to the Big Green's performance on Sunday. The meet was farther from Hanover than most meets that Dartmouth participates in, and Doherty said this weekend was one of the few times the team has had to take a plane and stay two nights for a meet. The course was also tough, and windy conditions added to the race's difficulty.
"It's deceiving because it's just a field but it's a lot hillier than it looks," Doherty said about the course.
The team has high expectations this season because of the talent level of this year's squad.
"We're definitely more talented than what we've shown so far," Doherty said. "This is probably one of the most talented cross country teams we've had in a while so it's really hard to put a finger on [why we are struggling]."
Shaw's performance was the one bright spot of the day he was the only Big Green runner to place in the top 50. His results were even more impressive given his condition going into the race.
"A lot of guys have been sick the last few weeks, and most of us had gotten over it before the meet but he was actually sick going into this weekend," Doherty said. "For how he felt going into the weekend it was a pretty good performance for him."
The Big Green women placed seventh at the meet with a score of 273. Dartmouth had an average time of 21:49.
Abbey D'Agostino '14 paced the team with a time of 20:23, placing her second overall in a field of over 300 runners.
Other scorers for Dartmouth included Alexi Pappas '12 with a 37th place time of 21:42, Hannah Rowe '14 with a 75th place time of 22:13, Caitie Meyer '14 with a 78th place time of 22:18 and Kate Sullivan '13 with a 92nd place time of 22:27. Katelyn Walker '14 and Elizabeth Short '12 also ran for the Big Green.
D'Agostino was seconds away from winning on Sunday, finishing just four seconds behind University of Texas, El Paso junior Risper Kimaiyo.
The Big Green will now prepare for the Mayor's Cup in Boston next weekend. The team returns again to Boston in two weeks to race in the season-culminating Ivy Heptagonal Championship.
Doherty said he is confident that the team will come into form as it heads into the home stretch of the season. The Big Green had its best meet of the season at the Championship last year.
