Women's harriers take
By By Michael Page Staff Writer
The Amherst women's cross country team placed seventh at the New England Open Championships at Boston's Franklin Park this weekend, in what was arguably their best team performance of the season. This meet provided the unique opportunity to compare times from the Codfish Bowl meet three weeks ago and races from the past few seasons.

As a result, the team's improvement can be seen from an objective standpoint, as all of the Jeffs' scoring runners improved by at least 20 seconds and up to well over a minute from their first showing at Franklin Park this season. In a meet that featured most of New England's Div. I and III schools, nationally ranked DI Providence College took first with 46 points.

Amherst finished behind only two teams composed of runners not on athletic scholarships. Unfortunately, one of these teams was Williams College, which slipped by Amherst into sixth place, beating the Jeffs by 12 points. Despite the shadow that this defeat may cast on the performance, the Amherst team had many strong individual performances and accomplished their pre-race goal of finishing in the top ten.

It is finally safe to say that the impetuous freshman, Carter Hamill '05, has emerged as the Jeffs' frontrunner. Hamill led the team for her fourth consecutive week Saturday, finishing in 23rd place with a time of 18:40, 23 seconds faster than she ran the same course three weeks earlier. "We can probably attribute a number of good performances yesterday to the very strong competition. I felt great about my race," said Hamill. "It was near a personal record, so I'll be looking forward to the race next week at Wesleyan."

Emily Lobsenz '02 and Becca Woo '02 finished essentially together in 39th and 42nd places, respectively. Woo is mentally one of the toughest runners in the race, evidenced by her consistency and improvement throughout the course of the season.

"Personally, I felt much stronger than I expected to and was happy with my time given the heat," said Woo. "I think the training this season is working really well for me and the rest of the team. I know that I'm not alone in bringing my time down significantly at each meet."

Completing the scoring component of the team were Alyson Venti '04 and Helen Dole '04, who finished within two seconds of one another in 71st and 76th place. Venti and Dole made a couple of the biggest time cuts from the last meet at Franklin Park, especially Venti, who dropped a minute and 15 seconds from her previous performance.

Diana Rancourt '02 and Martha Nelson '03 rounded out the varsity team, finishing in 95th and 117th places respectively. This was Nelson's first meet back in over a month, and she's expected to be a serious contributor for the Jeffs in the later stages of the championship season.

The Jeffs will be competing next week at Wesleyan College for the Little Three Championships.

Issue 06, Submitted 2001-10-17 00:12:27