The Amherst women’s outdoor track and field team placed third overall at the nine-team Amherst Spring Fling Invitational Saturday afternoon at Pratt Field.

Senior Victoria Hensley sprinted to a second-place finish in the 400-meter dash with a time of 59.48 and a fifth-place finish in the 200-meter dash with a mark of 26.86. The purple and white earned 16 points in the 800-meter run with a first-place finish from Leonie Rauls ’18 (2:20.32), a fourth-place finish from Keelin Moehl ’16 (2:21.37) and a fifth place finish from Kaeli Mathias ’18 (2:22.08).

Sophomore Nicky Roberts added a fifth-place finish for Amherst in the 1500-meter run with a time of 4:49.82, while classmate Danielle Griffin ’18 raced to fifth-place in the 400-meter hurdles, crossing the finish line in 1:11.85. In the 3,000-meter steeplechase, senior Betsy Black finished in 11:50.30 to place first overall and earn 10 points for the purple and white.
Amherst also demonstrated success in relay and field events. The tandem of Gabby Bishop ’18, Louise Atadja ’16, Julia Asin ’19 and Hensley finished first (50.88) in the 4x100 meter relay, and the 4x800 meter team of Roberts, Rauls, Mathias and Moehl was good for second place overall (10:00.65).

Sophomore Becki Golia earned eight points with a second-place finish in the high jump with a height of 1.58m. In the long jump, Atadja placed second (4.88m), Abbey Asare-Bediako ‘18 finished third (4.73m) and first-year Emily Flaherty finished fifth (4.59m). Asare-Bediako placed third in the triple jump with a height of 10.56 meters, while Flaherty took sixth with a 10.10 meter jump.

“The support at home made everyone want to perform better, which is exactly what happened,” Golia said.

The purple and white hope to continue their success this Saturday, April 16 at the UMass Amherst Invitational.