Most Recent Meet
NCAA's - Nov 22nd
Runners of the Meet - Elise Tropiano and Eric Holaday
The teams headed to Hanover, Indiana to finish the season with a run at the national Championships. For the second year in a row, both teams advanced to the NCAA's. The conditions were excellent for racing - very little wind, temperatures in the mid 30's and the course in great shape - all grass and while there were not any big hills, it constantly rolled but with the ground hard from the freezing weather, the course would run fairly quick. The men were the first ones to race this year, and the guys went through the first mile between 4:57 and 5:09 but were well back in the pack. Hoping for a race where we were aggressive and put ourselves up closer to the front of the race, we ended up racing similarly to how we have been over the past few weeks - not getting locked in closer to the front of the race, and with the depth of this race and the quality of the field, it hurt our ability to finish higher in the race. Despite putting the Top 5 scoring runners within 30 seconds again, we were a little to far back to have an impact on the scoring and finished 24th overall. Eric Holaday finished first for the team as he ran 25:38 to grab 107th, and went by Will Yochum in the last part of the race as Will would finish a few seconds back and place 118th. Daniel Murner and Jimmy Swanson finished together, running 26:00 and finishing 171st and 172nd while Harrison Lakehomer closed out the scoring with his 187th place, and time of 26:07. Peter Foote ran to one of his best times at 26:21 while Carlyle Eubank struggled due to a cold, and ran just over 27 minutes. With the experience of the meet, and returning 5 of the 7 for next fall, the team will look to learn from the race and the season and come back even stronger next fall.
The women have battled adversity and injury, and this meet would prove to be a little more of the same and certainly take on a different perspective then the previous year when they would win the Title. Coming into the race, the team would be looking to not one but two of the alternates to step up to replace Caitlin (injured at the District Meet) and Zandra (interviewing for the prestigious Mitchell Scholarship). Despite knowing the chances for team success similar to last year would be nearly impossible, it provided a great opportunity to run without any pressure and see what they could do. As she has done all season, Elise put on a show on the biggest stage as she broke away from a strong group of runners after the first mile and would lead the race until being caught in the final straightaway. Certainly considered a serious threat to win the Individual Title, she proved to others that she was not afraid of laying it all out on the course, as she made a big move and broke the race open and was able to run away from all but eventual winner, who stayed 20 meters behind for the final 2 miles, and when Elise made the final turn, she made her move and had a bigger finish then Elise - certainly more challenging to run from the front rather then being the one behind stalking their prey! Elise's second place was the best ever finish by an Amherst runner - previously Carter Hamill and Rob Mitchell had each placed 4th - and her time was nearly a minute faster then before as she ran 20:52 for 6k, and went through the 5k in 17:21. Sophie Galleher had a strong race to finish 72nd, and would actually finish as the 13th NE runner - a big improvement from her race a week ago. Hallie Schwab finished a strong 3rd for the team, while Nicole Anderson and Liz Dalton came across the line just a few seconds apart with Liz running under 24 minutes for the first time - a fitting way to end her Amherst career! Eliza Schalch ran 24:14 while Shannon McKenna got tangled up early in the race, and went down hard yet, despite the fall, managed to get back up and finish the race.