This Day in Dartmouth History: April 19
4/19/2020 2:00:00 PM | Baseball, Equestrian, Women's Lacrosse, Women's Track & Field, Athletics
April 19, 2014 — Equestrian claims the Ivy Show Championship
The Big Green equestrian team claimed the Ivy Show Championship history with a first-place finish at Cornell.
Dartmouth bested the host Big Red by four points to take the top spot in the standings, giving the program its fourth Ivy Show title, joining championship teams from 1997, 2007 and 2010.
Event wins by Lindsay Seewald (Intermediate Flat), Maya Johnson (Novice Fences), Catherine Conway (Novice Flat) and Justin Maffett (Walk-Trot) paced the Green and White to the title with 11 total top-three showings during the day putting them over the top.
April 19, 2013 — Abbey D'Agostino '14 sets the Women's Track program record in the 5000 meters
At the Mt. Sac Relays in Walnut, California, junior Abbey D'Agostino '14 ran a program-record 15:11.35 in the 5000m. Not only did that time set a new Dartmouth record in the event, it also helped the All-American best the field of 30 runners that consisted of both professionals and top collegians from across the nation.
D'Agostino broke her own record in the event by more than eight seconds at Hilmer Lodge Stadium that night. The previous mark had been 15:19.98 in the finals of the Olympic Trails last June in Oregon by D'Agostino in a bid to make the team headed to London.
The most decorated athlete in Big Green history finished her career with seven national titles, 12 All-American honors and 16 Ivy League crowns. She also earned 15 regional and national honors, including three national athlete of the year awards and three more national scholar-athlete of the year honors before competing in the 2016 Olympics where she and New Zealand runner Nikki Hamblin were given the Rio 2016 Fair Play Award for their show of sportsmanship after colliding in a 5000m qualifying heat.
April 19, 2012 — Alexi Pappas '12 becomes first BIg Green athlete in Women's Track to break 10 minutes in the steeplechase
Another Mt. Sac milestone came the year before as another All-American set a Dartmouth record there. This time, it was future Olympian and filmmaker Alexi Pappas '12 in the 3000m steeplechase.
Running in her home state, Pappas became the first Dartmouth woman to break the 10-minute mark in the event, running a 9:58.41 to win her heat of the "3,000-Meter Steeplechase Invite Elite." That 2012 campaign was a series of dominating performances by the senior as she ran a 10:07.58 two weeks prior for the old mark. She actually entered that spring as the program's top performer in the event with a 10:25.82, a mark she would utterly smash by mid-April.
That night in California would help Pappas own the nation's top time in the event for three straight weeks that year.
Since graduating, Pappas has not only competed in the 2016 Olympics for Greece, but also written, produced and starred in two feature films, Tracktown (2016) and Olympic Dreams (2019), even directing the former.
April 19, 2008 — Women's Lacrosse pulls off a big road upset at #2 Princeton
The women's lacrosse team sent a message to the rest of the Ivy League that they were still a force in 2008 with this 13-12 win at second-ranked Princeton.
The Tigers came into the game with a 10-1 overall record but were unable to completely dig themselves out of an early hole. Although an early Dartmouth lead eventually turned into a 7-7 game at intermission, the Big Green would break out to start the second half, pushing the lead to four, 13-9, with just over six minutes remaining.
That's when Princeton started to chip away, closing to within a single score just three minutes later. It looked as if the home team had tied the game in the final minute, but the apparent Tigers' equalizer was called off for an infraction and Dartmouth ran out the clock.
Freshman Kat Collins '11 was the driving force in the upset, scoring five goals and posting seven points, while fellow rookie Greta Meyer '11 had a goal and an assist to go along with five draw controls and five ground balls.
April 19, 1998 — Aaron Meyer '00 sets Dartmouth Baseball record with three home runs in a game
After sweeping a doubleheader at Brown the previous day, the Big Green baseball team went right back to work and took two more from the Bears on this day 22 years ago. While senior Eric Walania '98 went the full seven innings on the mound in the first game of the twinbill, it was the show of power from first baseman Aaron Meyer '00 that stole the show as the sophomore belted three home runs in the contest to set a program record.
Brown jumped out to an early 2-0 lead in the first, but Meyer put Dartmouth on the comeback trail by hitting a solo blast over the right-field fence to lead off the top of the second. Freshman Chris Miranda '01 added an RBI single later in the frame to knot the score at two. The Big Green would eventually score in every subsequent inning.
In the third, sophomore James Little '00 was plunked with one down and Meyer singled him to second before the pair pulled off a double steal. After a walk loaded the bases, Little sprinted home with the go-ahead run on a fielder's choice off the bat of freshman Joe Rockers '01.
Junior Mike Conway '99 provided a run in the fourth by lofting a sacrifice fly, and when Meyer led off the fifth, he hit his second home run of the afternoon, igniting a five-run frame. Meyer came to bat in the sixth as the leadoff hitter once again, launching his third four-bagger to boost the Dartmouth lead to 10-3 before both teams tacked on one more run before Walania recorded the final out on a grounder to second.
Meyer finished the game going a perfect 4-for-4 with his three long balls, 13 total bases (which set another team record, since broken), three runs, three RBIs and a stolen base.
