NESCAC's at Williams

Oct 27th 2007

Full Results Men and Women

Team Scoring

Women - 1st with 37 points

Men - 2nd 86 points

Individual Results

Women - Varsity and Open Race ( place followed by J) together

Men - Varsity and Open Race( place followed by J) together

Race Recap

Athletes of the Meet - Heather Wilson'08 & Nicole Anderson'09 and Will Yochum'11

What seems to have developed into a tradition in the past NESCAC Championships, Mother Nature decided to provide rain, mud and wind to make the meet a true XC Championship at Williams' Mt. Greylock High School course. Despite the adverse conditions, and in front of a huge crowd of friends and family who had gathered for the annual Tailgate festivities, the teams proved they are in the top of the conference. The women got the day started and, looking to defend their title from last year, they did so in a dominating manner. Heather Wilson broke free of the front pack at about 2 miles and opened up a large gap to win the race over a loaded field, including several All-American's and run to her best 6k time - despite the conditions. Kim Partee and Elise Tropiano were not far behind as they finished 6th and 7th - both earning First Team All NESCAC, and then hot on their heels was Caitlin Murphy who placed 10th, Meg Ray in 12th and a big time performance from Nicole Anderson to finish 14th - putting 6 Amherst runners on the All NESCAC Teams (Top14 earn All Conference). Sophie Galleher finished out the scoring 7 in 17th place, with first year runners Kristen Ballinger and Hallie Schwab having great races to finish in the Top 25, with Katie Moravec also in the Top 30. Rachel cameron and cara Giaimo rounded out the Top 12. In the Open Race - for those runners not comprising the Top 12 - we got some real good races, despite the worsened conditions of hthecourse from the first 2 races as well as heavier rains. Nicole Green led this squad with one of her strongest races, while Cate Knuff and Melissa Pritchard were hot on her heels.

The men were a bit conservative at the start and did not put themselves in the best position, and were playing a bit of catch up in the early stages. By the mid way point of the race, they had started to establish themselves and there was a lot of great racing, with the meet's balance on the line. Will Yochum had a strong last mile to move into the runner-up spot, securing an All-NESCAC finish as well as earning the Rookie of the Year honors. Florian Reichert and Daniel Murner just missed getting on to the All-NESCAC team by 2 and 4 seconds, but did finish in the Top 20. Carlyle Eubank finished 23rd, while Eric Holaday finished out the scoring in 27th place with another solid race by the pair. Ben Mears, as he has done for the past few meets, again raced in the scoring 7, securing his spot on the District team that will look to try and earn only it's 2nd NCAA appearance. Mike harbus had a strong 2nd half resurgence to round out the varsity seven. Jimmy Swanson and Peter Foote worked well together, while Harrison Lakehomer came in 10th for the team - re injuring his achilles that he had worked so hard to get back to racing health. John McGrail and Will Bell closed out the Top 12, while in the Open race, Tommy Anderson had a strong race to lead the team in that race despite having not raced for a couple of weeks due to injury. Steve Grigelevich and Travis Cohoon each had, despite the conditions of the course being as bad as they could have been, tough races and will get another shot at the course next week at ECAC's