In the first day of competition on Saturday, the Big Green scored seven total points. Dartmouth's Ethan Shaw '12 earned four of them with a fourth-place finish in the 10,000-meter race in a time of 29:37.78, barely edged out by the third-place runner from Harvard University by under a second. A fifth-place finish by Brett Gilson '13 in the javelin added two more points, and a sixth-place finish by Josh Cyphers '14 in the pole vault added a point to the Dartmouth total.
"We're disappointed with our overall result, but at the same time, this year I'm not sure if there was a whole lot more we could have done," distance runner Steve Mangan '14 said.
Several Big Green athletes had success in qualifying heats on Saturday and earned spots in finals races on Sunday.
"Our 800[-meter] runners all had great days yesterday in the trials," Mangan said. "We had a bunch of [personal records], which is a positive."
The Dartmouth men were able to add 25 more points to their total on Sunday. The success of the 800-meter runners translated to a point, as Lukas Zirngibl '14 took a fifth-place finish in the finals. Connor Reilly '13 tallied a total of 10 points for the Big Green thanks to a second-place finish in the 100-meter dash and a fifth-place finish in the 200-meter dash. The Big Green picked up points in the 5,000-meter run as well, with John Bleday '14 earning a fourth-place finish. Mangan also had success on the second day, earning third place in the 1,500-meter run with a time of 4:03.44.
"Mangan's race was outstanding, and if that race happens again, he could easily win that," Shaw said.
The runners noted that the race was unique because of the necessary tactics involved to win.
"It was a very slow and tactical race as it tends to be at Heps," Mangan said. "It turned into a 400-meter race, and I had trouble navigating through the other runners, but I closed pretty hard and managed to come in third and nearly got second, so I'm satisfied with that."
Dartmouth athletes also placed in several other events. Henry Sterling '14 placed fifth in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, Gilson took fifth in the Javelin and both the 4x100-meter and 4x400-meter teams took sixth.
"There are a lot of events that we didn't score any points in, and that's always an issue," Shaw said. "People worked hard, but we didn't quite put it together in some of the events, and sometimes you need to get a little lucky, and we didn't catch many breaks."
Shaw said he was encouraged by the success of some team members despite the Big Green's struggle as a whole, noting that Dartmouth had individual performances that could bode well for those runners at upcoming events like the regional championships.
"Even though we couldn't put it together as a team, we can come out of this with some excitement for the next couple weeks because people will still be competing," he said. "We have a few guys who could do pretty well in the regional championships, and we haven't had people make nationals in a while, so it would be good for the program."
