Most Recent Meet
New England Regional's - Nov 14th
BOTH TEAMS ADVANCE TO NCAA'S!
Runners of the Meet - Daniel Murner and Ali Simeone
The teams headed to Cumberland, Maine to compete for an opportunity to continue their seasons. Competing on the Twin Brooks XC course - a challenging mix of terrain, ups and down and tight turns - that was the same course in 2005 where the men and women both qualified for Nationals, the runners dealt with not only stiff competition from the other teams in the region, but also with mother nature. It looked as though the rain would hold off but shortly before the start of the women's race, it started to come and would continue to get heavier but nothing would deter either team from making the trip to nationals. The women were the first off the line, and despite lingering effects from flu like symptoms earlier in the week by a couple of the women and losing another scoring runner to mono, they were able to step up again and deliver. The same team that seemed destined to be in a rebuilding mode this year after getting hammered by graduation losses in the previous two years, continued to get stronger and step up as they have gone from an unranked team to a Top 10 ranking and earned a return trip to Nationals with their 4th place finish. Sophie again led the team, but for the first time this season, was not at 100% and the lingering effects from a midweek bout with the flu had a significant effect on her performance but did little in the way of hampering her giving everything that she had, as she moved with the early leaders before falling back to finish 14th. The team, as they have all season, rallied as the trio of Ali Simeone, Melissa Sullivan and hallie Schwab got out hard, put themselves in great position and then fought hard to move up in the last mile as Ali and Sully would finish 17th and 18th, with Hallie coming in a few seconds later in 23rd - all four of them earning All New England honors. Mercedes Taylor and Sarah Daly worked together early, grew apart in the middle of the race but got close again towards the end as they finished 4 places apart while Keri Lambert got the nod for racing duties due to the loss of Christina Wong due to illness. The 4th place finish was enough for the selection committee as Amherst was given one of the at-large bids for the National Championships.
The women got the start of the rain, while the guys - running an hour later - were bearing the brunt of it, but it just made for tougher conditions which they thrive on. The guys got off the line very well and established themselves in great position and did not waste a lot of energy running through traffic. Daniel Murner got out right to the front, and Will Yochum quickly moved from the chase pack into the front pack, joining Murner at the front. Steve Corsello got out well and while normally having the company of John McGrail on his shoulder, knew that he would be doing it on his own as McGrail was still feeling the effects of flu like symptoms. Jimmy Swanson and Eric Holaday would run with each other around the middle of the race and coming in together, while McGrail and Kit Callahan would be a little farther back but racing well. In the trail portion of the race, the front pack went from about 12 guys to a smaller pack of 6-7 with Will and Murner very much in contention, while Corsello continued to race very well in the high teens, and Jimmy and Eric doing their best to close the scoring gap. With a mile to go, a williams runner tried to make a move, and the race became one that would be decided amongst him, Murner and a Brandeis runner. Will was in 5th while Steve was still around 20th. In the final downhill stretch, the Williams runner made another move that seemed to open a gap but Murner was not done and kicked back to his shoulder and they battled to the wire with Murner grabbing 2nd - the best Amherst finish since Rob Mitchell's victory in 1997. With the top 3 at 2ns, 5th and 19th the team was able to lock up a runner-up finish when Jimmy and Holaday came through in 38th and 40th, while McGrail and Kit would come through in 64th and 89th. With it's 3rd Top 2 finish in the last three years, the team heads to Ohio for Nationals this weekend with hopes for a top 10 finish.