To start off the week, the Jeffs enjoyed a relatively relaxed meet held on their own track on Tuesday against Trinity and Keene State Colleges, in which athletes got a chance to try some different events and drop their times in a low-pressure environment.
"The mid-week meet was a great jump start for not only the Little Three Championships but also with the upcoming meets because it provided a low-key meet," said Head Coach Erik Nedeau. "Nerves were not as apparent as at a longer meet, and people got to go out and race relaxed."
On Saturday, the Jeffs traveled to Wesleyan University where they engaged in their annual rivalry with the Cardinals and Williams College at the Little Three Championships. By the end of the day, no team could upset the Ephs, who have held a monopoly over both the men's and women's titles for the past several years. Marking the beginning of the championship season with this first team-scored meet, the women came out in second place with 124 points, while the men finished in third with 87 points.
Women
Leading the Amherst women, senior co-captain Ginger Polich passed an Eph in the last 100 meters to grab a victory in the 800-meter race and earned a NCAA provisional qualification with her blistering personal record of 2:15.
Like Polich, junior Shauneen Garrahan secured a victory and a provisional NCAA qualification in the 5,000-meter race, with sophomore Heather Wilson passing the finish line less than a second later to also qualify provisionally for NCAAs.
"[Garrahan] set the pace of the [5,000] for the field so that people who were trying to get provisional qualifiers could just stick behind her and draft off of that pace," said Wilson. "It helped me a lot to know that [Garrahan] was running the pace I wanted to hit. Shauneen's encouragement during the race helped me a lot, too."
Fellow distance runners Nicole Anderson '09, Katie Moravec '08 and Liz Dalton '09 finished in fourth, fifth and sixth, respectively.
"As a whole, the distance runners in the [5,000] ran better Saturday than we had in earlier weeks this spring–especially Liz Dalton who ran a big PR," said Wilson.
First-year Elise Tropiano blasted past the only other two runners in the 3,000-meter steeplechase to take home an easy victory in her event debut, despite slipping on the barrier over the water pit.
The distance women also reaped the fruits of their labors in the 1,500-meter race, as Zandra Walton '09, Meg Ray '08 and Kim Partee '08 each achieved new personal records en route to a three-four-five finish.
The sprinters also had great personal and team success. In the 400-meter dash, senior co-captain Julia Rucker raced around the track to her best time of the season as she took home fourth place. First-year Carly Levenson passed the finish line a second later to grab sixth in the event. The 200-meter dash was led by junior Hannah Campbell in fifth and Rucker in eighth. Campbell returned to the 100-meter dash to lead a 3-4-5 finish with first-years Kathryn Loomis and Jenny Mancino.
Sophomore Maria Millard and first-years Kate Silverman and Loomis hurdled to success. Millard and Silverman nabbed first -and third-place finishes in the 400-meter hurdles, and Silverman was joined by Loomis in the 100-meter hurdles as they grabbed second and third places for Amherst.
The women's 4x100-meter relay squad of Silverman, Loomis, Mancino and Campbell was edged out by Williams and settled for second place. The Jeffs saw a bit more success in the 4x400-meter relay, as both squads of Jeffs entered in the race snatched the first two places.
Mancino placed high in all three jumping events. Finishing just behind Millard in first, Mancino took second in the high jump, and third in the long and triple jumps. First-year Molly Priedeman and Rucker also hit good marks for fourth place in the long and triple jumps, respectively.
Sophomore Lauren Benson chipped in several points towards the team total in the throwing events, as she finished fourth in both the discus and the hammer throw and fifth in the javelin.
Men
The men saw just about as many personal improvements as the women last weekend, highlighted by a one-two finish in the steeplechase by juniors Richard Wilson and Rob Boley, who finished within half a second of each other, each garnering new personal records.
The Jeffs also managed to drop times in the 5,000. "The race went out very slow with a 4:58 pace for the first mile, but then it picked up," said sophomore Mike Harbus, who finished fourth in his first 5,000-meter race of the season. First-year Harrison Lakehomer finished just ahead of Harbus in third, lowering his personal record by 20 seconds and breaking the first-year record at the College with his 15:09 time.
Both Jeffs who competed in the 1,500 raced to new personal records. John Babbott left the competition in the dust with a strong kick in the last lap to win the event in 4:02, while classmate Sam Hayman crossed the finish line two seconds later in third place.
The Jeffs continued to rack up new personal records in the 800. Sophomore Basile Beaty finished fourth in a big personal record time of 1:57. Classmate Rom Cabeza also finished under the 2:00 mark for the first time this season to place seventh. In the second heat, Ben Read '08 had a phenomenal finish to run to a 2:02 11th-place finish behind Babbott in 10th and just ahead of junior Eric Glustrom who also lowered his time in the event.
The 400 saw fifth- and sixth -place finishes from Steve Stewart '09 and Pat Benson '08. Junior Geoff Stricsek led the Jeffs in the 200 and 100 with his seventh- and ninth-place finishes, just ahead of Benson and Shashy's respective 10th place finishes.
Senior co-captain Nick Canevari was busy collecting points in the throwing events, grabbing third, fourth, fifth and seventh places in the discus, shot put, javelin and hammer throw, respectively.
In his first long jump attempt, Stewart grabbed fourth place, and repeated his performance in the triple jump. Senior co-captain Tim Porter, who also had a strong fifth-place finish in the 400-meter hurdles, grabbed eighth and fourth in the long and triple jumps, respectively.
A large number of the Jeffs will be heading to the NESCAC Championship meet hosted by Bowdoin College on Saturday as the championship season kicks into high gear.
NESCAC Notes
The Ephs have had a stranglehold on the men's and women's NESCAC titles since 2001 and are the favorite to secure the titles yet again this weekend. Other top teams in the conference include Middlebury and Bates Colleges.