Coming off a successful campaign last season, the men’s rugby team looked to set the tone for the 2013 season Sunday against Salem State. The Jeffs came out with a lot of energy and dominated the Vikings 36-12 behind a talented returning group of players and rookies that proved that they were ready to step into spotlight.
Micah Rotich ’14 scored the first try of the game for Amherst on an up and over kick to himself, and the Jeffs didn’t look back. Amherst was able to dominate in time of possession and eventually wore Salem State down.
Men
This past weekend the men’s golf team traveled through the Berkshires to play in the Williams Invitational. Competing on a tough course, the Jeffs managed to finish in sixth place out of a 24 team field. Junior Jarvis Sill ’15, who finished in a tie for seventh, led the team with a strong individual performance.
The Amherst Women’s Soccer defense maintained its impressive stinginess this week, helping goalkeeper Holly Burwick ’16 keep two clean sheets against Springfield College and Williams College. The Jeffs comfortably swept Springfield, 4-0, in a midweek nonconference game, but the Jeffs were unable to find the net in Williamstown. The result was a scoreless double-overtime draw.
Opening its season at Hamilton, Amherst’s football team got its 2013 campaign off to a solid start with a 23-7 victory on Saturday. Behind a staunch defensive performance, the Jeffs put together an impressive effort, never trailing and running away with a comfortable win.
Coming off a 6-2 season in 2012, Amherst fell short of its NESCAC title aspirations. The team was inexperienced at quarterback and wide receiver and, as a result, relied heavily on the running game. But that is all set to turn around this year.
The women’s tennis team traveled to Columbia Univ. this past weekend to begin their fall season. Over the course of the three-day tournament, the Jeffs faced some tough Division I competitors including host Columbia, Penn, and St. John’s.
In the doubles matches on Day 1, Amherst played Penn, where dynamic duo Jordan Brewer ’14 and Gabby Devlin ’14 dropped their match 8-4 after going undefeated as a pair in the 2012-2013 Spring season. Fellow seniors, Jen Newman and Zoe Pangalos, also lost their match, falling 8-5.
Although the official scoreboard indicates that both cross country teams finished sixth out of six at the UMass Invitational, the weekend was anything but a loss for the program.
Men
Kicking off their season against Division I competition, the squad performed admirably, highlighted by two impressive individual performances from sophomore Dan Crowley and junior KC Fussell. The former led the Jeffs with a time of 19:29.75, good for fourth overall. About five seconds behind him was Fussell, who took ninth overall with a 19:36.44 mark.
Looking to build off of a second place finish at the Springfield Invitational ten days ago, the Firedogs stumbled against a very talented Emerson squad that beat them 3-1 last Tuesday, in a match characterized by close games.
The match against Emerson, however, also signaled the emergence of first-year Nicole Gould who led Amherst with ten kills and believes that the Firedogs week of practice after the loss to Emerson helped Amherst a lot.
“We had a couple of great practices leading up to it, so we had a lot of momentum going into the tournament,” Gould said.
