This year provided countless highlights for the Big Green. Dartmouth was also lucky enough to play host to many of these memorable moments in front of a rowdy home crowd.
This spring, we started a new tradition, The D Sports Awards, that have honored Nejc Zupan ’14 as the best male athlete, Kristen Giovanniello ’14 as the best female athlete and Patrick Caldwell ’17 as the best freshman.
This week, our fourth and final installment in the series looks at the best moments, competitions and games in Hanover this past year. Vote for your favorite on our website before noon Sunday. We’ll announce the winner Monday on our website.
FOOTBALL VS. PRINCETON
When Princeton University stepped onto Memorial Field in late November, its team was trumpeted as one of the best in Tiger history with the Big Green as the only holdout to a perfect Ivy League season.
“They were the most prolific offense in Ivy League history,” co-captain Bronson Green ’14 said. “We knew we were basically out of contention for the Ivy League Championship, but we felt that we deserved to be in that same conversation, so to us, it was a championship game.”
As snow flurries began to blanket the field, quarterback Dalyn Williams ’16 scored on a 17-yard run to take a 28-21 lead for Dartmouth with less than five minutes left in the third. The Tigers clawed their way to the 1-yard line in the fourth quarter, crumbled against the Big Green’s defense, who twice stopped Princeton on third and goal after a false start sent the Tigers back five yards.
After a Garrett Waggoner ’13 interception with 24 seconds on the clock sealed the game, Dartmouth walked off the field with a 28-24 victory over the Tigers, winning the last game for many seniors and ruining Princeton’s spotless Ivy record — all amid drifts of snow.
MEN'S HOCKEY VS. PRINCETON
One of the most storied sports rivalries on campus, the men’s hockey game against Princeton University is always a show.
“If you’re not fired up for that game, you should probably check your pulse,” forward Grant Opperman ’17 said.
On Feb. 1, the two teams met for the third time that season, the first time in Hanover, to take the ice in front of a sellout crowd. Before winter break, the Tigers twice edged out the Big Green in overtime.
As the puck dropped in Thompson Arena, Dartmouth started aggressively, scoring three times in the first period and opened up a four-goal lead early in the second. But the Tigers fought back, collecting three goals in the second to loosen Dartmouth’s grip. The Big Green went into the second intermission up 4-3.
“Right before the third period, we went back into the locker room,” Opperman said. “The guys said, ‘We’ve been here before. We know how it feels. We know what to do here, buckle down and step on their throats. We’re a better team.’”
Dartmouth kept its lead for the entirety of the game, sealing the win with a power-play goal in the third and sending the Tigers back to New Jersey with nothing but a loss and a handful of tennis balls.
WOMEN'S BASKETBALL VS. PENN
In front of one of Leede Arena’s most energetic crowds all year, Dartmouth took down the University of Pennsylvania for its first season conference win on Feb. 22. The Quakers, who had handed the Big Green a 71-53 loss earlier that season, took the Ivy League title with a 12-2 record. The team came into the game looking for revenge, co-captain Nicola Zimmer ’14 said.
Dartmouth, who led the visitors 26-17 at the half, gave some ground to the Quakers as the second half dragged on. The early success gave Dartmouth a competitive edge, Zimmer said.
“We were bringing it,” she said. “We all started feeling at that moment that we could do this.”
With 47 seconds left, Penn took a 50-49 lead for the first time all game. With 21 ticks remaining, Zimmer swished a perfect lay up, giving the Big Green a one-point lead. A Penn turnover with five seconds left put Lakin Roland ’16 under the net for one last lay up, cementing the team’s 53-50 win and causing the arena to tremble underneath thunderous applause. Dartmouth, in one night, extinguished Penn’s nine-game winning streak and became only one of two teams to defeat the Quakers in the Ivy League all season.
TRACK AND FIELD INDOOR HEPS
For the first time in four years, Dartmouth hosted the Indoor Heptagonal Championships in March. The women’s track and field team posted a second-place finish, its best since 1996, while the men finished sixth.
“That was really special just to have the energy of the entire Dartmouth community in support of us,” distance runner Abbey D’Agostino ’14 said.
A packed Leverone Field House roared throughout the two-day event as the Big Green women improved from last year’s fifth place finish, led by national star D’Agostino. In her final home meet, the senior brought her total of Ivy League titles to 12 with wins in the 5,000-meter race, mile and 4x800-meter relay with Meggie Donovan ’15, Liz Markowitz ’16 and Megan Krumpoch ’14.
Janae Dunchack ’14 also made history, winning her fourth indoor pentathlon title. Dana Giordano ’16 won the 3,000-meter race, and Jennifer Meech ’16 won the 200-meter. On the men’s side, Steven Mangan ’14 set a new meet record with a time of 4:01.69 in the mile, and the men’s distance medley relay took home the title by just over a second.
BASEBALL VS. YALE
With six consecutive Red Rolfe titles, Dartmouth baseball came into the 2014 season with high hopes and even higher expectations. But the team started League play a little slow. Down in the standings 5-9 in League play after dropping a doubleheader to Brown University, Dartmouth’s situation became, in every game, do or die.
“We were expecting to go out there and win three out of four and we didn’t,” infielder Nick Lombardi ’15 said. “To come back like we did was crazy.”
With no room for error, the Big Green finished with a perfect 6-0 division record, setting up a one-game playoff in Hanover against Yale University.
The first few innings were tough, as the Bulldogs built a two-run lead after the second, and Beau Sulser ’16 went down on the mound. But out of thin air, the Dartmouth lineup caught fire in the third, tallying seven runs on its way to an 11-4 victory, securing a spot the Ivy Championship Series and the seventh consecutive Red Rolfe title. The win kept alive the longest division winning streak since the League split in 1993.
SOFTBALL VS. PENN
After splitting the first two games of the Ivy League Championship Series against the University of Pennsylvania, the Big Green found itself on the wrong side of a 3-0 slant going into the fifth inning of the deciding match-up.
The Big Green entered the bottom of the fifth in need of a jump. Second baseman Kara Curosh ’14 crushed a two-run homer to put Dartmouth on the board.
The home run motivated the team, pitcher Kristen Rumley ’15 said. “At that point, we were thinking, ‘Okay, we’ve got this. We can really come back from this.’”
In the next inning with two runners on, Rumley doubled into left-center, giving Dartmouth its first lead of the game. The hit started a five-run onslaught punctuated by a run scored on a wild pitch and two more runs brought in by Katie McEachern ’16 to reach the final score of 7-3. Rumley sent the visitors down in order in the seventh, ending on a grounder back to the circle, the ninth Quaker batter out in a row.
With the late-game victory over Penn, the team team claimed its first-ever Ivy title and the right to compete in the NCAA tournament.
The article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction appended: May 28, 2014
Softball played the University of Pennsylvania, not Yale University, as indicated by the section header and the accompanying photo. Both have been corrected.
