When Abbey D’Agostino ’14 scored Dartmouth’s only six points in the 2011 NCAA Women’s Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships, there was no way to predict that, three short years later, five Big Green runners would qualify for Nationals. These five runners contributed to a fourth-place finish for the Terry Crawford Women’s Program of the Year Award, which tallies points through the cross country, indoor and outdoor seasons.
D’Agostino went on to take first place in the 5000-meter run at Nationals in 2012 and 2013 before finishing third last week with a time of 15:43.54 at the championships in Eugene, Oregon.
Though in the early stages of the race D’Agostino fluttered between fourth and sixth place, 10 minutes in she had advanced to the front of the pack behind the University of Texas’s Marielle Hall and Stanford University’s Aisling Cuffe. She said that though she was looking to notch a third consecutive win in the event, she was ultimately satisfied with her performance. The weeks surrounding the race had been chaotic due to finals, senior week and graduation, she said. Because there were no other distance runners on campus during senior week who were competing at the NCAA, D’Agostino had to train alone.
“I honestly would not have given up anything,” she said. “There was so much positive that came out of that week, and it was great that I got to take part in senior week. [The third place finish] was a little bit humbling, but we give ourselves the 12-hour rule—we are a little bit upset about it, and we kind of move on.”
John Bleday ’14, Megan Krumpoch ’14, Curtis King ’16 and Dana Giordano ’16 joined D’Agostino in Oregon.
Giordano also ran with D’Agostino in the 5000-meter final, coming in 22nd with a time of 16:47.81.
Both Dartmouth men ran in the men’s 5000-meter race, with King finishing in 21st of 25 athletes with a time of 14:24.80 and Bleday taking 24th, running a time of 14:36.49.
Qualifying for the meet, Bleday said, was a little surprising considering his season times. After earning a position in the race, Bleday aimed to finish in the top 16.
“I’m disappointed about the way the race played out,” he said. “Instead of being a tactical race, it was a really, really fast race from the start, and I just wasn’t ready for that type of race. I’m more of a tactical racer with good speed at the end.”
At the front of the pack were two runners — Lawi Lalang, a senior from the University of Arizona and Edward Cheserek, a freshman from the University of Oregon- — who went head to head to race the fastest times in the meet’s history, with Lalang edging out Cheserek by .35 seconds with a finish of 13:18.36. He beat the 1979 meet record, set by Villanova University’s Sydney Maree, by more than two seconds.
Krumpoch, the lone sprinter for Dartmouth, placed fourth in her heat for the 800-meter race. Racing in the first heat- — the fastest group -— Krumpoch recorded a time of 2:04.96. Running with the first heat, Krumpoch said, pushed her to a faster time.
Krumpoch shaved almost an entire second off of her time in the finals, securing fifth place overall and setting a school record with a time of 2:03.82. The finish, Krumpoch said, broke her pre-meet goal of 2:04.
The conclusion of this race means that D’Agostino, Bleday and Krumpoch are hanging up their Dartmouth uniforms for good. But D’Agostino said the impact of racing at Dartmouth will resonate for the rest of her life.
“It was motivating for me that was my last time to really physically represent Dartmouth, and it was a way for me to show how much I’ve appreciated representing the Ivy League,” she said. “People kept asking me how it was to race my last race, but Dartmouth is always going to be a part of me. Maybe I’m not wearing the uniform anymore, but my best experiences I’ve had have been at Dartmouth and through the running community.”
D’Agostino will go on to race professionally with the New Balance team and is setting her sights on the 2016 Olympic Games Having missed qualifying for the 2012 London Olympics by less than half of a second. She noted that having five Big Green athletes shows how far the program has come.
“I’m really excited to be on the Dartmouth cheer squad and see what they do in the future,” she said.
