Hanover
The Big Green (8-4-5) will entertain St. Francis Brooklyn at Whitey Burnham Field on Thursday at 5 p.m., as the NCAA released the field for the 48-team tournament on Monday. A win over the Terriers (12-4-3) would send the Big Green to a Sunday second-rounder at Syracuse, which ousted Dartmouth from last year’s national tournament.
“We’re excited to be able to compete,” Dartmouth coach Chad Riley said in a news release. “We don’t really go into it with expectations one way or the other on who we’re going to play. We just wait to find out and then we start preparing.”
Dartmouth earned the Ivy League’s automatic NCAA berth with Saturday’s 2-0 blanking of Brown. Although Columbia shut out Cornell, 4-0, on Sunday to match the Big Green’s 5-1-1 league record, Dartmouth gained the berth for having beaten the Lions during the regular season.
Defense is again Dartmouth’s calling card. Led by senior goalkeeper James Hickok, the Big Green has surrendered just 12 goals during the campaign, posted clean sheets in its last five matches and amassed 10 shutouts in all. Noah Paravicini leads a relatively light-scoring Big Green attack (21 goals) with four goals, followed by three each for Wyatt Omsberg, Jonathan Nierenberg, Matt Danilack and Justin Donawa. Danilack’s five assists and 11 total points lead the team.
St. Francis Brooklyn recently defeated Saint Francis (Pa.) to capture its third Northeast Conference title in four seasons, earning the Terriers their 10th NCAA tournament appearance in school history. Yussuf Olajide (six goals) and Salvatore Barone (five goals), top the Saint Francis stats. Roberto Bazzichetto and Seth Erdman have split goalkeeping duties, also permitting just 12 goals on the year to go with 11 shutouts.
Several other teams with Upper Valley connections will be competing in the NCAA tournament as well:
Former Big Green coach Bobby Clark’s Notre Dame squad earned the 13th seed and will play either Loyola Chicago or Illinois-Chicago on Sunday.
Fourth-seeded Louisville, with Dartmouth graduate Stefan Cleveland manning the net as goalkeeper, will entertain either UCLA or Colgate in the second round on Sunday.
Washington, coached by Hanover High graduate Jamie Clark, is the 11th seed and will entertain either New Mexico or Portland in Sunday’s second round.
Hanover
The tipping point in the Big Green’s favor may have been the team’s performance at last weekend’s Northeast regional race at Van Cortlandt Park in New York. Dartmouth nipped perennial power Providence by one point to take third place and bolster its argument for an at-large NCAA invitation.
“We are very excited to return to the NCAA championships,” said Barry Harwick, head coach of Dartmouth’s cross country and track programs, in a news release. “It took a tremendous amount of hard work by the entire squad, particularly our five seniors, to earn the trip. We had our best race of the year at the regional meet, and we look forward to carrying that momentum on to the nationals.”
Dartmouth will be the only Ivy League team among the 31 reporting to the Wabash Valley Family Sport Center for Saturday’s race. The Big Green will be led by seniors Daniel Salas, Connor Clark, Matt Herzig and Nat Adams, all of whim earned all-region honors with top-25 finishes at regionals over the weekend.
The NCAA berth is the 19th in Dartmouth men’s cross country history and the first since 2013.
Burlington
Vermont had the lead to 21 points in the fourth quarter, at 55-34 with 7:33 to play, before Dartmouth mounted a furious, if finally futile, comeback. Senior Fanni Szabo scored a team-high 22 points for the Big Green, with sophomore Emily Dryden adding 10 points and sophomore Olivia Smith contributing 10 rebounds.
Candice Wright, Kristina White and Kallie Banker all had 11 points to lead Vermont.
The Big Green is off until hosting Holy Cross on Nov. 23.