Men's Track
The men finished their meet with 11 points, placing 15th overall. As Paul Whiting '04 explained, "We're not as big as some of the other teams, so it's hard for us to compete for team scores."
The 4 x 400-meter relay ended with the team's best finish. Whiting and Janak Chandrasoma '04 ran with sophomores Nathaniel Mahlberg and Joaquin Walker to win their section and place fifth overall. Whiting commented on his teammates' stellar performance: "Walker led off the 4 x 400 with a huge lead right off the bat." The remainder of the team followed his example, recording their best time of the year.
Freshman Ngai Otieno took sixth in the long jump. He also ran his best time of the season in the 55-meter.
Sophomores Jamal Aaron and Dave Molina joined juniors John Stanton-Geddes and Andrew Schneider in the men's 4 x 800-meter quartet for a sixth-place finish. It was an exciting race, as the men almost broke the eight minute barrier, finishing with a time of 8:02.95. The relay had a huge anchor leg from Schneider, who raced to an indoor track personal record in the open 800-meter earlier in the meet and placed ninth.
The men had three runners in the 3000-meter run. Sophomore Mike Page took the final All-New England spot by finishing eighth. Behind him were Dave Schreiner '06 and Matthew Katz '05, who placed 10th and 13th respectively.
In the 200-meter dash, Walker placed 11th, while in the 1500-meter, Stanton-Geddes finished 12th. Whiting leaped to a 15th-place finish in the triple jump.
In the Distance Medley Relay (DMR), Fraser Kitchell '06 and Tim Porter '06 along with Page and Zeke Phillips '05 ran to a 13th-place finish. Page finds running the relay more enjoyable than individual events. "People cheer, and you get excited about the race. You're not just running for yourself," he said.
Whiting has been amazed throughout the season by the freshmen. "I am impressed with how the freshmen just dove in right away, were really willing to put forth all the effort and set an example for the older runners of what it means to work hard," he said.
Women's Track
The women finished the meet with 35 points and in eighth-place overall thanks to several exciting races. Scott, Haney, Conell-Price and Kate Hamill ran an exciting 4 x 400-meter relay with a strong third-place finish. Scott led off with a great leg and passed her enthusiasm along with the baton. All four women ran their two laps in 61 seconds or less and bested the previous school record by half a second, setting a new record of 4:03.32.
Kate Hamill explained, "It was one of my most memorable races as a member of the Amherst track team. We got so psyched up beforehand, and even though a number of us had already run two or three races beforehand, I think we ran incredibly well."
"[The successful relay was] a nice highlight," said Coach Erik Nedeau. "They all raced tough and worried only about the teams around them rather than time, and they let the fast time happen."
The women's relays also did well. The DMR started off the meet taking fourth, with freshmen Polich and Haney, Alyson Venti '04 and Kate Hamill earning All-New England honors.
In the 4 x 200-meter relay, the freshman trio of Polich, Haney and Scott were joined by tri-captain Alison Stahl '03 for a sixth place finish. Then in the 4 x 800-meter relay, Polich ran with Helen Dole '04, Carter Hamill and tri-captain Laurel Kilgour '03. The quartet ran to a fourth-place finish and their best time of the season.
Individually, Carter Hamill recorded the team's highest placing, second, in the 5000-meter. In this race, Hamill earned herself a spot at the NCAAs, and came within less than a second of her own school record.
In the 600-meter, Kate Hamill ran to a fifth-place finish and sophomore Monica Westin ran her best time of the season. Kilgour and Conell-Price raced to the finish line, with Kilgour coming in barely a second before Conell-Price and taking the last All-New England spot of eighth-place in the event. Conell-Price finished ninth.
Scott placed fourteenth in the high jump, and greatly impressed the crowd with her sixth-place triple jump performance. In the distance events, Venti placed ninth overall after winning her section of the 1000-meter. Senior Alison Dimon finished the 5000-meter well under the nineteen-minute mark, taking 10th-place.
The team will employ a new strategy at next weekend's meet. Coach Nedeau said, "We are going to shift the focus to the DMR and the 4 x 800-meter, and will try to see an automatic qualifying time in the DMR and another school record in the 4 x 800-meter."
Nedeau believes in his runners. "People are where they need to be at this point, I just think that some are running a little cautiously and not letting their training dictate where they are at. We need to resist the urge to try and hold anything back at this point, and lay everything on the line and surprise ourselves," he said. "We need to only think of competing to our fullest against those around us and the times will happen."