This past Saturday, the Amherst women’s indoor track and field team traveled to Northampton to open their season at the non-scoring Smith Invitational. Competing against a talented field of other schools, including Little Three rivals Wesleyan and Williams and to local foes Smith and Mount Holyoke as well several other New England schools, the purple and white boasted several impressive individual finishes.
Leading the way for the Amherst women was the 4x400 relay team, which placed second in the event. Comprised of runners Danielle Griffin ’18, Katherine Hom ’19, Julia Asin ’19 and Arianna Mordy ’20, the purple and white finished with a time of 4:13.31, second only to the Keene State “A” team that garnered first place with a mark of 4:11.44.
The top-finishing purple and white individual at the meet was sophomore Christina Scartelli, who placed third overall in the 800-meter run, finishing in 2:32.24.
Meanwhile Amherst also impressed in the 600-meter, with two runners finishing in the top five of the race. Junior Danielle Griffin finished fourth while teammate Molly Carleton ’19 took fifth with times of 1:45.56 and 1:45.60, respectively.
The track portion of the purple and white also managed to take two seventh-place finishes across the slate of events.
Veteran sprinter Abbey Asare-Bediako ’18 put forward a strong effort for the purple and white with a time of 8.27 seconds in the 60-meter dash, finishing only a quarter second behind the first-place finisher, Hannah Cohn of Wesleyan. Additionally, Hom built off her success in the 4x400-meter relay race to claim seventh individually in the 400-meter race with a time of 1:03.16.
Meanwhile, in the field events, Amherst only entered a single competitor in each event, with junior Becki Golia placing fifth overall in the high jump with an impressive leap of 1.58 meters.
The purple and white have the remainder of December off from competition, only returning to action over interterm when the team will travel to Wesleyan to compete against Wesleyan and Williams at the Little Three Championships on Saturday, Jan. 14.
