It may have been a week off from NESCAC play for the women’s basketball team, but the squad took care of business, staying undefeated last week with road wins over Keene State and Skidmore.

The team dominated Keene State throughout en route to a 23-point win on Tuesday before pulling away from Skidmore in the second half for a 64-36 victory on Saturday. With the wins, the ninth-ranked Lord Jeffs open the season 5-0 for the sixth straight year.

The Lady Jeffs may have had a rough start to the season, but they have quickly righted the ship with back-to-back wins over NESCAC rival Wesleyan.

The Amherst squad hosted the Cardinals for two games over the weekend of Nov. 30 - Dec. 1 and took both of them, improving to 3-3 on the season. On Friday, it was a multi-faceted attack that carried the Jeffs: six different players were involved in the scoring as the Jeffs edged their opponent by a 2-1 margin.

After beginning their 2012-2013 season with three wins in as many games, the men’s basketball team looked to build on that strong start this past week.

With three more games on the schedule, including their first two road contests of the season, remaining undefeated would prove to be a tough task. The Jeffs did manage to snag two more victories, pushing their winning-streak to five games, but unfortunately, lost their final game of the week, their first blemish of the young season.

Back when the NFL locked out its players, the NFL Players’ Association emphasized that theirs was a union looking out for every NFL player, not just the superstars. To their point, they explained that on average, a player who tries out for an NFL roster has a career that lasts all of 3.3 years. Clearly, longevity is tough to bottle up in the NFL. Opportunities are fleeting, perhaps most constrained by the chance that the next hit, the next missed play, or the next loss could dismantle a team.

Interim head coach Jeff Matthews already has his work cut out for him. The Amherst squad, which nearly won a NESCAC Championship last season, has dropped three of its first four, including a crushing overtime road loss to conference rival Hamilton.

In the first game of the home-and-home series with the Continentals (Friday, Nov. 17), the Lady Jeffs did manage to take care of business by a 6-5 score. It was the seniors who carried the team on that day, as Megan Doyen, Geneva Lloyd and Kaitlyn McInnis all got in on the scoring action.

Women’s basketball opened the season in convincing style over the break, beating Brooklyn and 25th-ranked William Paterson to win the Amherst Tip-Off Tournament before coasting to a 30-point blowout of Mount Holyoke.

The Lady Jeffs went into their season opener ranked 15th nationally and coming off their fourth straight Final Four appearance. The team lost four starters from last year’s squad to graduation, but it hardly seemed to matter against Brooklyn as the Jeffs built a 15-point halftime lead and went on to win 67-42.

Men
The Amherst men’s swimming and diving team opened its 2012-2013 campaign in convincing fashion on Nov. 16 with a 173-103 route of NESCAC rival Colby. Of the 16 events in the dual-meet, the Jeffs won an astounding 11 in Pratt Pool, proving that despite their grueling second-place finish at NESCACs last year, the team is back with a vengeance.

Leading the way for the Jeffs were sophomores Conor Deveney and Alex Kang, both of whom won individual events before coming together to win the 200-yard medley relay.

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