Women
The Jeffs did not let the rainy weather bring them down this weekend. Instead, they decided to continue their winning streak and captured first place at the UMass-Dartmouth Invitational. Amherst started the event off well by annihilating the competition in the women's junior varsity section with 23 points.
First-year Kristen Ballinger performed well in the second half of her race and eventually finished in third. Senior Nicole Green finished in the top 15 for the meet with Liz Dalton '09, Christina Wong '11 and Mercedes Taylor '11 running under the 21-minute mark.
The varsity section followed suit as they ran in pairs with junior Elise Tropiano and senior co-captain Heather Wilson finishing in third and fourth place, respectively. Following close behind were sophomore Sophie Galleher and senior Katie Moravec who finished in 10th and 11th places, respectively.
Rounding out the Amherst pack five seconds later were sophomore Caitlin McDermott-Murphy and senior Meg Ray. All of the previous pairs finished under 19 minutes and the junior-senior pairing of Nicole Anderson and Laura Mortimer, cracked the top 20. The eight pairs were close to every other teams' best runner, showing the depth and talent of the Amherst women's team. "We have an awesome team this year. Both the junior varsity and varsity squads dominated their races and almost everyone improved their times from last year," said Galleher. "Our goal this season is to win Nationals, and Saturday's race was a good confidence builder and great chance for us to work as a team."
Men
The men's cross country team had a strong performance on UMass-Dartmouth's five-mile course on Saturday. Daniel Murner '10 led the team in 12th place with a time of 25:38. Senior co-captain Mike Harbus finished only eight seconds behind Murner to take 17th place, followed by sophomore Carlyle Eubank in 23rd.
Amherst's score was rounded off by Eric Holaday '10 and junior co-captain Peter Foote, who finished 31st and 45th, respectively. Tom Anderson and Steve Grigelvich finished in under 27 minutes, improving upon their personal bests. First-year Will Yochum finished third in the junior varsity race on Saturday.
Amherst has high hopes for the season ahead as the Jeffs have so far consistantly topped last year's performances. The Jeffs finished second at the Amherst Invitational and fifth at Dartmouth last year. Stepping it up this season, the Jeffs have won the Amherst Invitational last weekend and took fourth on Saturday, beating out NESCAC rival Tufts University by over 30 points. "We look pretty solid for this early in the season," said Harbus.
"When we add Will Yokum and [Florian Reichart] into the varsity line up we will be a force to be reckoned with," Harbus said. With exceptional newcomers and many veterans already improving upon last year's times, the Jeffs are anxious to face Williams College this weekend at the Williams College Purple Valley Classic.