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lthough a rolled ankle sabotaged her first college cross country season the winter workouts D’Agostino was turning in had Coogan almost giddy heading into the spring of her freshman year. In fact, what he was seeing in the runner from Topsfield, Mass., led to a standing joke with coach Museveni Akanno, who works with the Dartmouth jumpers. “I would go into his office and say, ‘This girl is going to win the Heps,’ “ Coogan recounted with a laugh. “Muse would say, ‘Mark, she is not going to win the Heps.’ And I would say, ‘I’m telling you, she’s going to win the Heps in the 5K.’ And then she won Heps. “Then I told him, ‘Muse, she is going to make nationals.’ He pointed out she hadn’t even broken 16:30 for a 5K and I said, ‘Muse, I’m telling you, she’s going to make nationals.’ “ Coogan was out on a limb but he wasn’t through making predictions. “I said, ‘Muse, I will bet you that she’s an All-American.’ He was like, ‘Mark, she hasn’t even made nationals yet. How is she going to be an All-American?’ “And then,” Coogan said with a grin, “it all came true.” That and more. Much, much more. In her first spring as a college runner D’Agostino opened eyes around the Ivy League by winning the 5,000 at Heps. Then she opened eyes around the country by racing to third place in the same event at the NCAA’s in Des Moines, Iowa. After missing most of her first season of cross country, she made up for lost time as a sophomore by winning the Heps cross country title during a freak snowstorm in Princeton. She followed that with a first-place finish at the NCAA Regionals and then proved her outdoor spring was hardly a fluke by finishing third at the NCAA Championships in Terra Haute, Ind. At the Indoor Heps last winter D’Agostino won the mile and just missed doubling in the 5,000. She then went on to anchor the Dartmouth distance medley relay team to a third-place finish at the NCAA’s in Nampa, Idaho. With a trio of third-place finishes at NCAA’s already on her resumé, D’Agostino topped herself last spring. First, she won the 1,500 and the 3,000 at the Outdoor Heps. Both in record time. One month later, on a sweltering Drake University track in Iowa, she became the first Dartmouth woman ever to win an NCAA title, claiming the 5,000 by three-hundredths of a second. And still she wasn’t done. At the Olympic Trials in Eugene Ore., three weeks after the NCAA’s, D’Agostino won her heat of the 5,000 and then ran a personal record 15:19.98 in the finals. In 13th place in the 16-runner field at the midway point of the race at famed Hayward Field, she steadily made her way up to fifth. A dramatic sprint down the final straightaway left her an agonizing two-tenths of a second out of the third spot that would have punched her ticket to the London Olympics. D’Agostino’s time was more than 30 seconds faster than any Ivy League woman has ever covered 5,000 meters. “Athletically, she is as good as any woman distance runner of her age that I have ever been around,” said Coogan. “And I have been
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P EAK | FAL L 2012
D’AGOSTINO CONQUERED SNOW IN WINNING THE 2011 HEPS CROSS COUNTRY TITLE (RIGHT) AND EXTREME HEAT AT THE 2012 NCAA OUTDOOR CHAMPIONSHIPS (BOTTOM) EN ROUTE TO DARTMOUTH’S FIRST EVER FEMALE TRACK TITLE.
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Athletically, she is as good as any female distance runner of her age that I have ever been around,” said Mark Coogan.