True Wins Heptagonal Title

Friday, October 27

Van Cortlandt Park (New York, N.Y.)

TBA

Dartmouth College

Heps Championships

10/27/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Cross Country

By: Dartmouth

Friday, October 27, 2006

True Wins Heptagonal Title

Results

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, October 27, 2006

Dartmouth Men Third at Heps Cross Country; Big Green Women Sixth

NEW YORK, N.Y. -- In the end, the numbers didn't add up for the Dartmouth men's cross country team.

Although the Big Green's aces got the job done, depth posed a problem, as defending champion Dartmouth was third with 97 points at the annual Heptagonal Championship at Van Cortlandt Park.

What was predicted to be a two-team race between the Big Green and Princeton didn't materialize. The Tigers won the title with 50 points, followed by Columbia with 63.

Somewhat obscured by the disappointing team finish was the outstanding effort by junior Ben True (Yarmouth, Maine). True won the individual championship, clocking 24:29.1 and outrunning Cornell's Jimmy Wyner (24:32.0) down the stretch.

True became the first repeat winner since Dartmouth's Jim Sapienza won three titles from 1982-84. True's time was the seventh fastest by a Big Green runner.

"Ben's a competitor, and he knows what he needs to do," said head coach Barry Harwick. "He has confidence in his finishing kick and he did exactly what he needed to do today."

Also impressive was senior Steve Mucchetti (Ridgefield, Conn.) who joined True as a first team All-Ivy honoree. Mucchetti was fourth, clocking a personal best VCP time of 24:40.8.

"I ran 30 seconds faster than I've ever run on this course," said Mucchetti, "and I finished 10 spots better than I did last year. Personally, it was a pretty good performance. But team-wise, what can you say. It's disappointing."

The five runners for both Princeton and Columbia crossed the finish line before Dartmouth's third. Big Green sophomore Pat Dooley (Durham, Conn.) ran a solid 22nd in 25:18.6, but the damage was done.

"After the first two runners, things went a lot more poorly than we had hoped," said Harwick. "Everyone expected a Dartmouth-Princeton duel, but it did not turn out that way. We needed more help from some of our guys. We just didn't get it today."

Dartmouth's fourth runner was sophomore Glenn Randall (Collbran, Colo.), 27th in 25:21.1, and the fifth was junior Harry Norton (No. Reading, Mass.), 45th in 25:39.7.

The young Big Green women's team, running without a single senior, moved up a notch to sixth place with 153 points.

Princeton (42) also won the women's title, and the Lions (64) were the runners-up just four points ahead of Cornell.

Junior Susan Dunklee (Barton, Vt.) was the Big Green's top finisher, taking 14th in 17:57.9.

Rounding out Dartmouth's top five were sophomore Caitlin Cunningham (Simsbury, Conn.), 26th in 18:20.9; freshman Blair Sullivan (Chester, N.J.), 34th in 18:28.2; freshman Ali Smrcina (Falmouth, Mass.), 41st in 18:39.4; and freshman Laura Tabor (Portsmouth, N.H.), 51st in 18:51.7.

Head coach Maribel Souther was upbeat after the race. "We finished sixth. That's one spot better than last year and that's an improvement. Everyone will be back last year -- they ran PRs and they felt great. It's only going to get better," she added.

Both teams return to Van Cortlandt Park on Saturday, November 11 to compete in the NCAA District 1 qualifier.