Cross-country competes at NCAA pre-nationals
By Priya Krishna
Published on Thursday, October 22, 2009
Despite a strong showing by Chris Zablocki ’10 at the NCAA Pre-Nationals this past weekend at Indiana State University, the Dartmouth men’s cross-country team finished in the middle of the pack, placing 16th out of 35 teams.
Coming off of a sixth-place finish at the Paul Short Invitational, the team was looking to improve even more at this meet.
“I was very excited going into this invitational,” coach Barry Harwick said. “It’s the time for the Dartmouth athletes to compete against the best teams in the country.”
Unfortunately, the team was not able to maintain a steady pace throughout the race, captain John Schroeder ’10 said.
“I went out a little too hard,” he said. “You have to be in a good position when you start, but it’s more important to end strong and move up during the race.”
No. 1 Stanford University ultimately won the men’s team race in the white section with a score of 47, as compared to Dartmouth’s 506 points.
The race was scored by summing the places of each school’s top five finishers.
Zablocki came in 43rd out of 237 runners, with a time of 24:26.3. Tom Robbins ’11 also finished in the top 100, with a time of 24:46.9.
Because the Big Green failed to qualify for the national championship through the pre-nationals, Schroeder said that there is added pressure surrounding the upcoming regional meet at Franklin Park in Boston, Mass.
The team is also looking forward to the Ivy League championship at Van Cortlandt Park in New York, where Dartmouth will take on Columbia and defending champion Princeton.
In order to prepare for the Ivy League championship, Harwick said that he always has the team do a special workout to show the runners their potential.
“We get on the track at Memorial Field and do this special session,” he said. “It reinforces to the guys what good shape they’re actually in, and that gives them a lot of confidence.”
Zablocki said that he is confident in the team’s abilities to perform at a very high level.
“I’ve run thousands of miles with these guys,” he said. “I know what they are capable of. I know I can have our team win it all.”