Entering the final event of the Ivy League Championships on Saturday in Ithaca, N.Y., the equestrian team trailed by just one point. Justin Maffett ’16 was up to the challenge, earning the Big Green’s only individual win of the day and giving the team its fourth ever Ivy Championship title.
The Big Green has won previously in 1997, 2007 and 2010, but this was the team’s first League title won away from the Upper Valley.
The team defeated hosts Cornell University by six points. Brown University came in third in the competition, which featured representatives of every Ancient Eight school except Harvard University and Columbia University.
This was the team’s first chance to compete against many of its Ivy foes, as it competes against schools in its own region for the rest of the season.
Since the competition was away from home and out of the region, the Big Green riders competed on horses they had never seen before.
A road victory is especially difficult, Janna Wandzilak ’14 said, because of the randomness of the draw and unfamiliarity with the horses.
The day began with preliminary rounds to determine who would make the various championship competitions in the afternoon. Wandzilak finished third in the open fences championship. Lindsay Seewald ’16 placed third in the intermediate flat competition and fifth in the intermediate fences championship. Catherine Conway ’17 had a strong day, placing third in the novice flat championship and fourth in the novice fences championship. Meg Rauner ’17 placed fourth in the walk-trot-canter championship before Maffett took home first in the walk-trot championship.
The competition’s set up, where the advanced riders compete before the novice riders, puts pressure on competitors in the walk-trot, the last event of the day, Alexa Dixon ’15 said.
Despite only one individual win by the Big Green, the team accumulated enough points to win the overall championship thanks to picks for point riders by head coach Sally Batton, Wandzilak said. Before any competition, the coach decides which riders’ scores will count toward the team’s overall score.
“One of the things that has made our team so strong this year is that we’re so deep, so we have multiple riders in each event that can score points,” Wandzilak said.
As a walk-on sport, the team’s strength varies each year, Seewald said.
The team heads to nationals in two weeks and hopes that its success this year will translate into a top-10 finish in the 16-team competition.
“We’ve kind of been the underdogs all season,” Wandzilak said. “We didn’t have really high expectations going into this year, so we’ve just been taking it one step at a time.”
The team upset perennial powerhouse Mount Holyoke College at the Zone 1 Championship, so many schools have been cheering for it, Dixon said.
The team travels to the Farm Show Complex in Harrisburg, Pa., for the national championship in two weeks.
