HANOVER, N.H. - The blizzard that hit the Northeast this weekend could not cool off the men's track and field team. As the snow and chilling wind swirled around Dartmouth's Leverone Fieldhouse, the squad took fourth at the Heptagonal Championships - tallying 88 points and securing an impressive four individual wins. Cornell captured the top spot with 122, Princeton was second with 102 and the University of Penn-sylvania outpaced the Bears with 98. The fourth-place effort was a two-spot improvement from last year's championships.
"Our staff was extremely pleased with the men's perform-ance," said Director of Track and Field and Cross Country Craig Lake. "We were excited to improve on last year's sixth-place finish ... but (we) narrowly missed both third- and second-place finishes. So, we are pleased but not content. We have no doubt that there is more to come."
Nearly half of the squad's points came from first-place finishes, as high jumper Ray Bobrownicki '06, sprinter Dallas Dissmore '06, co-captain throw-er Jake Golenor '06 and sprinter Paul Raymond '08 returned to Providence with first-team All Ivy honors.
Bobrownicki claimed his third indoor high jump title with his 7 foot, 1/2 inch clearance, more than three inches higher than the next competitor.
"Ray has absolute confidence and rises to the occasion at big meets," Lake said. "He went in as the favorite and performed well under the pressure to defend his title."
Bobrownicki is only the third man in Ivy history to win the event three times, and his new personal best moves him to third all-time for Brown.
Dissmore entered the week-end with the top seed in the 500-meter dash and won his first Ivy title in dominating fashion. Dissmore showed no mercy in the preliminary heat, taking control of the race from the gun and pressing the pace even after he had gapped the field.
He ran the finals with the same aggressive strategy, re-fusing to let up until he had crossed the line in 1:02.55. He outpaced the competition by nearly two seconds, and his time was almost a best for the season, despite Dartmouth's notoriously slow track.
Back on the infield, Golenor led the throws squad with a Herculean 55 foot, 1/4 inch effort in the shot put. His mark bested the second-place finisher from Yale by over two feet.
"Jake Golenor stepped it up this weekend," Lake said. "He was getting pumped up all weekend and fed well off of the other great performances on the first day."
"Big Jake" brought the crowd to its feet with his personal best performance and gave the Bears priceless inspiration early on in the second day of the long and tiring weekend.
With the feeling of an Ivy League football championship still fresh, Raymond suited up for his first track Heptagonals and immediately put himself on the record books. The track rookie shocked the competition, first by winning his preliminary heat in 6.88 seconds and then by taking down Cornell's Jordan Lester, who had been favored to win, in the finals.
Raymond and Lester both posted official times of 6.85 in the finals, and the fieldhouse grew silent while awaiting the photo-finish ruling. After a few tense moments, the Brown fans erupted when Raymond's name was announced as champion.
"In his first championships, he came out as an Ivy League Champion, beating some really top guys across the league," Lake said. "Paul is a tremendous athlete and a true competitor. He picked up everything extremely quickly."
David Howard '09 garnered second-team All-Ivy honors for his runner-up effort in the weight throw. Howard posted a 56-11 1/4 in the event on Saturday, then returned to the circle on Sunday to hit 49-9 3/4 in the shot put, good for third. Howard added 14 points to the Bears' total with his breakthrough weekend.
"One thing I can say about the meet this weekend is that ... this weekend was a perfect stepping stone going into outdoor Heps," Golenor said. "I think a lot of our younger athletes gained valu-able experience and confidence after this weekend. I could see it in their faces."
Also earning second-team recognition was the 4x400-meter relay team. Mike Pruzinsky '07, Christian Tabib '07, Luke Renick '08 and Dissmore clocked 3:16.75, with Dissmore anchoring and picking off two other squads to move his team from fourth to second.
A trio of Bears grabbed third-place points, as Pruzinsky clocked 48.64 in the open 400-meter, Jamil McClintock '08 posted 8.07 in the 60-meter hurdles and Grant Bowen '07 cleared 16 3/4 in the pole vault. The results were season bests for all three.
Ikenna Achilihu '08 repeated his performance from 2005 and took fourth in the triple jump, hitting 48-8 1/4.
Sneaking in to grab points for the men's distance squad with sixth-place finishes were Ozzie Myers '08 and Chris Burke '07 in the 3,000-meter and 5,000-meter events, respectively. It marked the first time either scored at the indoor Heps.
"Performing at the Ivy League Championships is tough," Lake said. "Anything happens ... to go in and exceed expectations is truly magnificent, and we had a number of guys do that this weekend."
With the indoor season drawing to a close for the improved Bears' squad, a few elite members will continue on to the Intercollegiate Associ-ation of Amateur Athletes of America competition, but most athletes will switch gears to outdoor training.
"We have our sights on the outdoor Championship title already," Lake said. "We are confident that we can place second outdoors, but want to aim higher."
