The five-kilometer race was run over a hilly golf course, but the cool temperatures made the conditions ideal for racing. The meet consisted of only eight teams, but of those eight were the top two ranked teams in the nation: Middlebury College and Moravian College. Moravian came out on top with 34 points, just ahead of Middlebury with 37 points. Amherst (76) took third place over Keene State College (97).
While Amherst had no front-runners contending with those of Middlebury and Moravian, their depth showed the potential for improvement that they need to compete with these teams in a couple of months.
Both teams had four runners ahead of Amherst's first, but the Jeffs placed seven runners ahead of Moravian's sixth and Middlebury's seventh.
The team was led this week by the youthful and audacious freshman Carter Hamill. Hamill ran in a pack with Jeff teammates Emily Lobsenz '02 and Alison Venti '04 for much of the race but managed to pull away in the last mile of the stretch and lead her veteran teammates to the finish in eleventh place with a time of 19:12.
"The women ran well together as a team. I know from where I was running, around mile two, there was a small pack of us encouraging one another along, which is always helpful," said Hamill.
Amherst's next six runners finished within 24 seconds of one another. Lobsenz and Venti led the pack in 13th and 16th places, respectively. Venti looked the strongest she has in a while and showed signs of the same runner that helped lead the Jeffs early on during last year's season.
"It was exciting going into the race knowing we were up against the top two Division III schools in the nation. It gave us an opportunity to see where we stand this early in the season and what we will be up against at nationals," said Venti. "We packed well as a team. Our next goal will be to move that pack higher up in the race."
Co-captain Molly Burnett '02 finished less than a second behind Venti in 17th place and was followed closely by Becca Woo '02, Alison Dimon '03, and Diana Rancourt '02, in 19th, 20th, and 22nd places, respectively. Rancourt, who decided to start racing this weekend, is expected to be a huge contributor to the Jeffs in a few weeks once her conditioning kicks in.
"This was a good meet for us, because it shows us what we need to do, and what it is going to take if we want to be one of the top teams in the country," said Coach Erik Nedeau. "Some people who had been sick or are coming off of injury and illness are starting to round into racing form, and once they are back then we should be even stronger up front."
The New England polls that came out this past weekend have the Amherst team ranked second behind Middlebury. The Jeffs will have their first opportunity to challenge many of the other teams in the region next weekend at the Codfish Bowl at Boston's Franklin Park.
"For the next couple of weeks, I just want to focus on competing well and getting a little closer to the front of the races early on. We have been finishing the second half of the races great, and I want to close up the gap a little bit earlier in the race and rely on our second-half strength to finish the race off," said Nedeau.