Track teams finish up 2003 campaign
By George Doty, Managing Sports Editor
For all but one member of the men's and women's track and field teams, the ECAC Championships hosted by MIT May 15 and 16 marked the last meet of the season. Carter Hamill is the only Jeff to have earned the opportunity to compete at the NCAA Championships this week at St. Lawrence University in New York.

The men finished the meet with 18 points, good for 15th place overall, while the women finished in 26th on the strength of their 10 points. Springfield College was the top team in the men's competition with 78 points while Wheaton College's 113 points was tops among the women. Williams College posted the best results of any NESCAC school in both the men's and women's meets, finishing fourth and second, respectively.

Freshman Margaret Davis was the standout of the meet for the Amherst women. Running in the 10000-meter race, Davis completed the first half of the race in a time of 18:54 and completed the grueling race in a brisk 37:50.12. Davis claimed fourth place with this impressive time, which was almost 90 seconds faster than her previous best. Davis barely missed qualifying for Nationals with her time, but seems poised to extend her season next year. "I felt confident going into this meet because of all the hard work I'd put in during the season," said Davis.

Mike Page '05 and John Stanton-Geddes '04 led the men with a spectacular 1-2 finish in the 5000-meter race. Page set the pace with a time of 15:25.34 while Stanton-Geddes followed right behind in 15:27.85.

Sophomore David Molina secured Amherst's only other top ten showing with a 10th place finish in the 800-meter.

The competition marked the end of the collegiate careers of tri-captains Brian Hart '03, Kate Hamill '03, Laurel Kilgour '03 and Alison Dimon '03.

Carter Hamill, who did not run at the ECAC Championships, will run the 10k at Nationals on May 22 before returning to the track two days later to participate in the 5000-meter race. Hamill took third in this race last year. "[Nationals is] going to be quite a challenge because the competition is so strong this year, and that goes for both races," Hamill said.

Issue 26, Submitted 2003-05-23 17:38:42