It was Dartmouth's first meet of the season at which the entire men's and women's teams were able to compete. While several members of both teams traveled to meets in North and South Carolina during spring break, the entire roster had not yet competed together.
Friday's results included some outstanding performances by Big Green athletes on both squads. For the women, Alexi Pappas '12 decisively broke her own school record in the 3,000-meter steeplechase by 18 seconds, posting a time of 10:07.58 to finish second overall in the event. Her closest collegiate competitor, the University of Connecticut's Meghan Cunningham, finished more than 17 seconds behind Pappas. Pappas likely secured herself a place at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Oregon in late June with the time, which met the Trials "B" standard of 10:15.
Other notable performances for the women's team included a 12th-place finish in the 1,500-meter run by Arianna Vailas '14, who posted a time of 4:29.39, and a seventh-place finish in the 5,000 meters by Alison Lanois '15, who finished in 16:59.66. In the final event of the day, Bridget End '14 finished fourth in the 10,000-meter run, finishing in 35:53.35. Top performances in the women's throwing events include Christina Alexander '11, who finished fourth in the women's discus event with her final throw of 136'10".
The men's results on Friday saw T.J. Servino '15 set a new personal record in the hammer throw with his toss of 168'9", good for eighth place. In the discus, Jacob Neumann '15 finished fourth with a throw of 144'5". On the track, Brad Kenimer '12 finished seventh overall in the 5,000-meter run with a time of 14:20.25, while Steve Mangan '14 won the second section, placing 10th overall in 14:27.92.
"I think we all performed about as well as we expected," Mangan said. "It's good to get the first race of the spring out of the way and to look forward to other events."
Three Big Green men competed in the 1,500-meter run. Matt Miner '12 was the top Dartmouth finisher with a time of 3:53.52, good for 22nd place in a field of 62 runners.
"For our distance runners, we all ran pretty good races," Mangan said. "We are all trying to make progress and work up to the Heptagonals in May."
Saturday's results included several impressive performances for the Big Green women. Megan Krumpoch '14 took fourth place in the 400-meter hurdles with a time of 1:02.00. Krumpoch also anchored the 4x400-meter meter relay team that finished sixth overall in 3:55.71. Cara Vernacchia '13 finished fourth in the triple jump with a jump of 35'10.5", while Megan Faeth '12 finished fourth in the javelin with a throw of 124'6". Alexander followed up her strong performance in the discus on Friday to win the shot put on Saturday with a throw of 42'4.75".
"Overall, the event went pretty well for the team," Krumpoch said. "We had a bunch of girls break or get close to their best personal times in their events, and that is definitely exciting to see so early in the season."
Krumpoch also commended Pappas on her new school record.
"[Alexi] works really hard and is a great leader for the rest of the girls," Krumpoch said. "Her performance this weekend should definitely help set the tone for the rest of the season."
Dartmouth track and field will next be in action on Saturday, when the team hosts Middlebury College and the University of Vermont at Memorial Field in its only home meet of the season.
