The men's and women's cross country teams ran into the first real test of their mettle at the Michigan Invitational which hosted several nationally ranked teams on Saturday.
The men's squad placed ninth out of 13 teams while the women came in sixth out of 10 teams.
The men's top finisher was Sam Wilbur '94 in eleventh place, followed by Ted FitzPatrick '95 in 16th.
"Under the circumstances the team did pretty well," Coach Barry Harwick said. "The quality of the competition, with several nationally ranked teams, made it the toughest meet by far. Unfortunately, travel out there was a nightmare to say the least."
"We performed alright," he added, "but we were capable of running a little bit better. We really need to get used to running against top competitors and this meet was really useful in preparing us to achieve our goals, namely Heptagonals."
Both teams had planned to fly directly to Michigan but were forced to take a bus down to Boston and then wait for a flight out of Logan Airport. Consequently, the teams arrived late and were unable to properly orient themselves with the course.
"I can't attribute our performance to all of the travel mishaps," Co-captain Derek West '94 said, "but it certainly put us in the wrong frame of mind. At a meet like Michigan, if you're not absolutely hungry, it's not going to happen and it just didn't."
"We need to make sure we keep a positive outlook," he said. "This just gets us fired up for Heps and we were disappointed, but two or three days from now we'll be hungry."
Wilbur echoed Harwick's confidence and added "things look fine as long as everyone runs together. Things didn't come together at Michigan but it wasn't representative of what we can do. Our concentration during the race needs some work but we're still confident and we should be among the favorites at Heps."
The women's squad found themselves in the same boat as the men's squad. Faced with their first real test, they carried high expectations but were pleased with their performances.
Sophomore Maribel Sanchez was the first Dartmouth runner to cross the line in 19th place, closely followed by Meegan Larsen '95, Kristin Cobb '95 and Captain Tori Knox '94.
"This weekend enabled us to see where we stand nationally," Coach Ellen O'Neil said. "I thought it was a pretty positive outcome. In terms of our ranking, we didn't hurt ourselves but we may have helped ourselves" by beating Notre Dame, which was ranked above the Big Green.
O'Neil was pleased that Dartmouth "ran a tight pack and that the time lapses between our runners were respectable" as the team focuses its attention on its season-long goal -- Heps.
"I guess it was pretty good overall," Knox said, "but we were kind of hoping to place fourth or fifth. The traveling hurt us and we weren't able to see the course and visualize specific goals for the race. People were simply worn out from traveling and just sitting around at Logan."
The team's confidence for Heps remains strong and Knox is quick to point out that "it's not a setback at all. It doesn't reflect how well we'll perform at Heps and I don't think people will let one minor disappointment stand in their way. This is just one more experience we'll put behind us."
"We're looking for a top three placement," O'Neil said, "and mainly to improve on last year's fifth place. If things go well, we may be able to squeeze in an even better finish. We're as optimistic as ever."
"We had good individual races," Sanchez said, "and we implemented a lot of the strategies such as pack-running that we've been working on. We tried to hang close together and it was a good experiment for Heps. Our focus is still there and we're psyched and positive for Heps."
This year's Heps will be held at Columbia's Van Corlandt Park this weekend.
