Great Day for Dartmouth Cross Country

Monday, November 21

Indiana State

TBA

Dartmouth College

NCAA Championship

11/20/2005 7:00:00 PM | Men's Cross Country

By: Dartmouth

Nov. 21, 2005

Results

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. -- Dartmouth men's cross country coach Barry Harwick summed it up succinctly.

"It was a great day," said Harwick, phoning back to Dartmouth after the NCAA cross country championship concluded.

The Big Green men grabbed 15th place in the 31-school field, led by the All-America performance of sophomore Ben True (Yarmouth, Maine). Meanwhile, senior Melanie Schorr (Suffield, Conn.) also earned All-America honors, finishing 22nd among 253 competitors.

The Dartmouth men came into the meet ranked 17th in the latest national poll. True turned in a time of 30:16 on the LaVerne Gibson Championship Course, finishing 32nd overall. Indiana State hosted the event for the third time in four years.

Wisconsin won the team title with 37 points, placing three runners in the top nine, including Simon Bairu, who defended his individual title for the second year with 29:15.9.

Following True to the finish line were junior Alec Wall (Portland, Ore.), 78th in 30:48.2; senior co-captain Dave Burnham (Shelburne Falls, Mass.), 81st in 30:50.7; senior co-captain Steve Mucchetti (Ridgefield, Conn.), 165th in 31:32.5; and sophomore Harry Norton (Exeter, N.H.), 184th in 31:44.2.

Dartmouth's other two runners were sophomore Matt Davis (Bend, Ore.) who was 207th in 31:58.0, and junior Ian Marcus (Amherst, Mass.), 229th in 32:20.4.

It was the Big Green's first trip as a team to the NCAAs since 2001 and the best finish since 1998 when Dartmouth was 15th.

"It was a great performance for our team," said Harwick. "We exceeded our expectations. Our future looks incredibly bright with so many of our top runners returning."

Competing as an individual, Schorr had an impressive run, clocking 20:21.4. The winner was Johanna Nilsson, a junior from Northern Arizona who had a time of 19:33.9. She was 13 seconds ahead of runner-up Caroline Bierbaum of Columbia.

In her only other NCAA appearance in 2003, Schorr -- who carries a 3.96 GPA while majoring in genetics -- was 144th of 252 runners as a sophomore.

Complete Results