The Amherst women’s cross country team traveled to rival territory this past weekend to participate in the Purple Valley Invitational. Out of a pool of 23 teams, which was expanded from the 17 that competed in the 2015 meet, the purple and white sped to a ninth place finish.

SUNY Geneseo took the title, with four runners finishing in the top-20 out of 274 runners. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and host-team Williams jockeyed for second and third, and the only other NESCAC to place above Amherst was a veteran-heavy Tufts team in fourth.

In Amherst’s fight to place, the team trailed Ithaca by a slim margin but managed to beat out NESCAC rival Middlebury for a strong third place among NESCAC participants.

First-year Katherine Treanor was Amherst’s first runner to cross the finish line, nabbing 13th place and crossing the line in 22:39. Treanor was coming off a strong first run at the UMass Invitational, where she also led the purple and white.

Junior Nicky Roberts was the second Amherst runner to finish, with a time of 23:18. That impressive time earned her 22nd overall, and put her just 21 seconds ahead of senior Savanna Gornisiewicz, who earned a 23:18 time and 38th place finish.
The fourth Amherst runner to finish was senior Cara Lembo, who set personal bests in both of the first two meets and has proven to be a reliable contributor in her final season.

Tess Frenzel ’17, Cat Lowdon ’17 and Sylvia Frank ’19 rounded out the point scorers for Amherst with respective times of 24:10, 24:17 and 25:01.

Amherst will compete this Saturday, Oct. 1, traveling to Lehigh University to compete in the Paul Short Invitational.