Women's track
At the Husky Carnival, several women had impressive performances. Freshman sprinter Ariel Haney ran a quick 400m time of 62.29, which qualified her for Division III New Englands and earned her seventh place overall. Haney was joined by senior Laurel Kilgour, sophomore Monica Westin and senior captain Kate Hamill in a fourth-place finish in the 4 x 800m relay.
Kilgour also turned in an excellent 1000m run, placing 3rd, Amherst's highest placing in the meet. In the 5000m run, Carter Hamill '05 achieved an NCAA Provisional time in the 5000m event. Freshman Julia Rucker began her college track career on a good note by setting a new personal record in the triple jump by adding nearly a foot.
The women's team began their first full meet at Tufts by competing against nine other schools. The women placed third overall with 89 points, behind Williams College and Tufts. Kate Hamill and Jessamyn Connell-Price '06 had fast opening marks, capturing the gold in the 600m and 800m respectively. Alyson Venti '04 returned from her semester in Australia looking stronger than ever. She finished fourth in the 1500m, nearly breaking her personal record in the process and crossing the line only two seconds behind second-place finisher Carter Hamill.
The women's 4 x 400m relay proved the most exciting event of the day. Haney, Kilgour, Connell-Price and Kate Hamill nearly upset the Williams team down the final stretch and managed a respectable third place finish. In the field events, newcomer Rucker again improved upon her personal record in the triple jump and placed sixth overall.
On the night of Jan. 24, Carter Hamill competed in the 5000m at the Terrier Classic, finishing in 13th place with a time of 17:20.03. This elite meet, which was held at Boston University, was won by the World Junior Cross Country Champion from Ethiopia and provided Hamill with valuable experience in a field of noteworthy performers.
The rest of the team headed to Wesleyan University a day later, and walked away laden with medals. One particularly stellar performance was that of the 4x800m relay team comprised of Kilgour, Helen Dole '04, Ginger Polich '06 and Connell-Price. These talented women dominated the race, lapping the competition and winning by more than 18 seconds.
Remarking on her favorite event, Connell-Price said, "We were already ahead when I got the baton so it was fun to run and challenge myself without the pressure of opponents."
Individually, many women had successful debuts in their new events. Kate Hamill, normally a sprinter, had an easy win in the longer 1000m.
In the 600m, an event that did not exist in her home state of California, Cornell-Price almost broke the school record, running at breakneck speed, especially for the final portion of the race. Captain Kilgour praised her saying, "Jessamyn passed two people simply coming around the corner."
Conell-Price said, "It was hard to run an event I had never run before, but it was really helpful having strength from Interterm training."
The lone Jeff competitor in the 3000m, Venti was in the lead from the start and won the race by nearly a lap with a time of 10:29.17.
Freshman Lyndsey Scott enjoyed three first-rate performances. After leaping over 15 meters in the long jump, she won her heat of the 200m dash. Finally, she was joined by Kate Hamill, Monica Westin '05 and Ariel Haney '06 in the second place finish of the 4 x 400m relay. Haney soared in her own right, placing third in the 400m dash.
Senior Alison Dimon missed cracking the 19 minute barrier in the 5000m by less than two seconds and placed third. In the 1500m, Kilgour placed third, just ahead of freshman Jenny Horowitz who set a new personal record.
In the 800m, Polich not only grabbed the fourth place finish, but also lowered her personal record by a considerable amount. "Ginger went out faster than she's used to, but ended up running a very good time," said Kilgour.
Men's track
The small group of men who ran in the Husky Carnival posted great season-opening times. Juniors Paul Whiting and Julius Nanna both had impressive 55m sprints and triple jumps. Janak Chandrasoma '04, Tim Porter '06 and Nathaniel Mahlberg '05 joined Whiting on the 4 x 400m relay team. In addition, Mahlberg and Porter ran excellent 500m races in their first events of the season.
At the Tufts Invitational, the men placed sixth overall with stellar performances from many of the runners. Whiting captured first place in the triple jump and edged out fellow football player and track captain Pat Hayes '03 in the 55m dash. However, Joaquin Walker '05, outdid both Whiting and Hayes and took the second place finish.
On Jan. 25, the men competed at Wesleyan and came away with several runner-up honors. Andrew Schneider '04 led most of the time during the 800m and wound up in second place. A set of faulty starting blocks did not stop Hayes from leaping to the runner-up position in the high hurdles. Whiting posted good times and lengths in the sprints and in the triple jump, finishing second by only a few inches in the triple jump.
David Schreiner '06 ran a great race in the 3000m and placed second in the large field of twenty-nine runners. Kilgour was impressed by his performance and said, "He kept moving up throughout the race." Zeke Phillips '05, James Johndrow '03 and Evan Guiney '06 also had strong 3000m races.
John Stanton-Geddes '04 had an excellent performance, placing third and breaking a personal record in the 5000m.
Walker also ran extremely well, coming in third place in the 200m and fourth in the 55m dash.
Freshman middle-distance runner Billy McNitt is very excited about the team's prospects. "The team is looking pretty good. We had a good start at this meet with good performances in distance and sprints," he said.
The team is looking forward to seeing their hard work over Interterm pay off immediately.
"We did a lot of work with double sessions throughout Interterm, and that will start to show up in later meet performances," said Porter. Porter is optimistic about the young season. "We have only had two full meets so far, and as the weeks progress times should get faster and faster."
Commenting about the overall performance of the athletes, Coach Erik Nedeau said, "The meet this weekend was a very good start, some very good performances despite the amount of work that we have been doing these past couple of weeks with double practices."