Abbey D’Agostino ’14 made history at the NCAA Division I Indoor National Championships in Albuquerque, N.M., becoming the first woman in Division I history to win the 3,000-meter race and 5,000-meter race national titles indoor in back-to-back years. As a result she was named the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association 2014 Women’s Division I Indoor National Track Athlete of the Year, an honor she received in 2013 and in the fall cross-country season.
Led by D’Agostino, the women’s team finished with an all-time program-high 24 points, tying Stanford University for seventh place. The University of Oregon finished first in the meet with 44 points.
All of the women competing left Albuquerque with All-American honors. Megan Krumpoch ’14 finished sixth in the 800-meter run and the distance medley relay composed of Elizabeth Markowitz ’16, Jennifer Meech ’16, Kumproch, and Dana Giordano ’16 finished in eighth.
D’Agostino won her sixth national title when she finished first in the 5,000-meter run with a time of 16:20.39. She had aimed to stick with the lead pack, but the race started slow and freshman Erin Finn from the University of Michigan took a big lead. D’Agostino led the chase pack, slowly closing the gap as Finn tired.
“There was a certain point where I heard my coach yell, ‘Don’t let her get too far ahead,’” D’Agostino said. “I was pretty confident that if I tried to close the gap slow enough, the race was long enough.”
She returned to the track the next night for the 3,000-meter run to try to win her seventh overall title, the most ever by an Ivy League athlete. Employing a similar strategy as she did for the 5,000-meter, she won the 3,000 in a time of 9:14.47, almost two seconds ahead of second-place finisher, University of Arkansas junior Dominique Scott.
While the women’s distance medley relay qualified with D’Agostino as the anchor, Dartmouth coaches swapped in Markowitz after her runner-up finish in the mile at the Ivy League Championships. Markowitz ran the lead-off 1,200-meter leg, and Giordano replaced D’Agostino, running the final 1,600 meters.
“We weren’t sure how the team would do overall, but my goal was to stick with the other girls,” Markowitz said. “I felt like I was struggling behind but I was actually able to stay close and hand off.”
Although some of Giordano’s competitors had better personal bests, the sophomore moved past runners to garner the final All-American spot for the Big Green.
In her first season focusing on the 800-meter run instead of the hurdles, Krumpoch qualified for finals in the event by finishing fifth in her heat. Her time was fast enough time to be the sixth overall qualifier. In the finals she finished sixth with a time of 2:06.84, earning her second All-American honor of the weekend.
The men’s team sent both Will Geoghegan ’14 and Steve Mangan ’14 to Albuquerque to compete in the mile. Geoghegan took second in his heat with a time of 4:09.94 to automatically qualify for the finals. Mangan, who won the Ivy League title for the race at the Heptagonal Championships, was less than a second back in fifth place and missed qualifying by .04 seconds. Mangan ended his first season of indoor track, after skiing on the Nordic team his first three years at Dartmouth, as an NCAA qualifier and Ivy League champion.
Geoghegan took to the track again Saturday and came back from his fourth place finish at the Ivy League Heptagonal Championships to finish fifth in the country with a time of 4:04.17. Geoghegan is now a two-time All-American athlete, after finishing with All-American honors in cross-country in the fall.
Geoghegan’s performance at NCAA championships better represented of his skill than the Ivy Championships, head coach Barry Harwick said.
“He is confident competing with the best.” he said.
Assistant coaches took another group of runners to Myrtle Beach, S.C., where the team trained for a week. Dartmouth runners competed in the Shamrock Invitational this weekend to open the outdoor season. Big Green athletes competed in events such as the javelin, hammer throw and steeple chase, which are not a part of the indoor season. The highlight of the weekend for both teams was the first place finish by Anna Kikut ’16 in the 200-meter race.
Both teams return to Hanover to host a tri-meet with the University of Massachusetts at Lowell and the University of Vermont at Memorial Field on Saturday.
