"We got to Middlebury with only a half-hour to spare before the race and had a very rushed warm-up, but the team still ran well overall," said co-captain Hilary Plum '03.
"The bus took a bit longer to get to the meet than it should have and, as a result, warm-ups were a bit rushed which do not make things easier, but they all kept their cool and stayed composed," said Head Coach Erik Nedeau.
Co-captain Alison Dimon '03 had a time of 20:36.3 to finish 11th. Erinn White '04 came in directly after Dimon with a time of 20:49.7. Plum finished 15th in the line-up, while Helen Dole '04 came back from a week of injury to finish 16th for Amherst. Margaret David '06 and Laurel Kilgour '03 finished 17th and 18th respectively.
Plum was very pleased with her 15th place finish since this is only the second race of the season. "I had a good personal race, getting back into the swing of things," said Plum. She placed 15th at the Panther Invite, an impressive improvement from her 32nd finish last week.
Hamill beat out Springfield College's Marissa Clapp, who won the women's individual title at last weekend's Amherst Invitational. The Panthers' Michela Adrian captured the women's title with a time of 18:50.6, which helped them to their overall finish of first place.
Middlebury is a perennial power, so Amherst was very pleased with their second place finish. Nedeau said that he is very excited about the upcoming season, despite the loss of several women who graduated in 2002. "The dynamics of the team are considerably different than in the past years, as we do not have the depth nor overall quality that we may have had, but what is nice is that a lot of different people are going to have the opportunity to have an impact and that is exciting," said Nedeau.
The Jeffs will travel to UMass-Dartmouth next week.