Just 13 points separated the Dartmouth women’s track and field team from the Ivy League title at the outdoor Ivy League Heptagonal Championships at Yale University this weekend. The meet was not decided until the women’s 4x400-meter relay, the final track event of the day, finished. The men’s team improved on its sixth-place finish at the indoor championships, finishing in fifth place.
The Harvard University women defended their indoor title, winning with 162 points. Dartmouth’s 149 points marked a new program record for total points, eclipsing the previous record of 116 from 1996. The second-place finish also marked the best finish for the team since 2000. Third place Cornell University was far behind with 94 points, followed by Columbia University with 88 and Princeton University with 86.
On the men’s side, Cornell University defended its title with a small margin, scoring 149 points to second place Princeton University’s 142.33 points. The third-place team was also far back, as Harvard University scored 109 points followed by the University of Pennsylvania with 82 points and Dartmouth’s 66.66 points.
The meet marked the end of the impressive four years for the women’s team, which saw an improvement from a sixth-place finish in 2011.
“I’m in awe of how far we have come,” Abbey D’Agostino ’14 said. “We came in with the goal to really make this team something different. It’s great knowing that we are leaving a team that will keep performing. It didn’t really hit me until we had our team meeting at the end and we were doing our recap and the coaches were getting emotional.”
D’Agostino finished her last Ivy League championship earned her 14th, 15th and 16th career Ivy League titles and her third consecutive most outstanding performer award, graced with a standing ovation from all the competitors at the meet.
“The entire Heps field was standing up and clapping, and that’s what she deserved,” teammate Dana Giordano ’16 said.
D’Agostino took to the track on Saturday for her first-ever 10,000-meter race, winning in 33:10.38 over Princeton freshman Megan Curham by almost 14 seconds.
“I figured that doing my first 10k at the League meet would be really cool,” D’Agostino said. “It definitely felt different then the 5k. The whole time I was waiting for something to happen. But it was really great because my teammates were able to share their expertise.”
She returned on Sunday to defend her 5,000-meter title in 16:34.48 over Columbia junior Waverly Neer. She concluded her weekend with a victory in the 3,000-meter race in 9:14.57, six seconds over Cornell senior Rachel Sorna. No other woman has won the 3,000-meter, 5,000-meter and 10,000-meter at the Ivy League Championships in their career. D’Agostino won them all in two days this weekend.
Giordano won her second Ivy title in the 1,500-meter run. Liz Markowitz ’16 finished fifth in the race. Giordano also took third in the 3,000-meter run behind D’Agostino.
“The 1,500 was really fun,” Giordano said. “The prelims are always the scariest part because you never know if you are going to get through no matter how prepared you are.”
Sarah DeLozier ’15 joined D’Agostino and Giordano in the 3,000-meter race and claimed sixth place, giving the Big Green a total of 17 points in the event. Delozier also finished second in the 3,000-meter steeplechase with a time of 10:17.84.
The 4x800-meter relay team won the event for the first time in program history at the outdoor championships. Meghan Grela ’17, Markowitz, Meggie Donovan ’15 and Megan Krumpoch ’14 won the race by three seconds over Harvard.
Janae Dunchack ’14 scored the sixth-highest total in Heps history to win the heptathlon, two years after winning the title in 2012.
The other two Ivy titles both came from Kaitlin Whitehorn ’16. The sophomore won the 100-meter dash and the high jump and is now the first woman to win both events in a career.
Steve Mangan ’14 and Josh Cyphers ’14 won the only two individual titles for the Dartmouth men, in the 1,500-meter race and the pole vault, respectively.
In one of the most exciting races of the weekend, mangan beat out Columbia senior John Gregorek by one-hundredth of a second.
“I knew that John Gregorek would be the one to watch so I wanted to make sure I was tracking him the whole time,” Mangan said. “In some ways it was nicer to win here. Indoors was special because it was at home with the home crowd, but outdoors it was a little more difficult. Indoors guys are running a bunch of events but outdoors all the best distance guys are in the 1,500.”
Mangan took the lead late in the race, but Gregorek fought back, as the two approached the line shoulder-to-shoulder. Mangan leaned forward as the line neared to gain an advantage, hitting the deck after he crossed the line. Mangan lay on the ground in the middle of the track until the results were announced, at which point he raised his arms in celebration.
Cyphers won the pole vault, clearing 5.05-meters. He is the first Dartmouth man to do so since 1955.
Mangan also teamed up with Silas Talbot ’15, Lukas Zirngibl ’14 and Tim Gorman ’16 for a fifth-place finish in the 4x800-meter relay with a time of 7:34.62. Henry Sterling ’14 claimed second in the 3,000-meter steeplechase and Curtis King ’16 finished third in the 5,000-meter race.
Edward Wagner ’16 finished in second place in the 400-meter hurdles with a time of 52.19. Alex Frye ’17 performed well in the 100-meter hurdles, finishing fourth with a time of 14.62.
TJ Servino ’15 finished second in the hammer throw on day one to help put the Dartmouth men to an early second-place standing.
Both Mangan and D’Agostino cited the uniqueness of the Heps meet. Every athlete competes for their schools due to passion for the sport.
“You really can’t replicate that team energy and the whole environment,” D’Agostino said. “We’re all cheering for our respective schools and there is an understanding that we’re here because we want to be here and we’re doing it because we love it. You can’t find other meets like that.”
