The Amherst women’s track and field team enjoyed a successful interterm, kicking off their season with two major meets.
Although the team finished third in the Little Three Championship meet behind NESCAC rivals Williams and Wesleyan, the purple and white saw numerous promising individual performances. Wesleyan hosted the meet on Jan. 14, where Amherst tallied 72 points to Wesleyan’s 94 and Williams’ 169.
Junior Leonie Rauls and senior Kiana Herold each took top spots in individual events, with Rauls winning the 1000-meter run in 3:08.17 and Herold securing a victory in the high jump event with a 1.69-meter performance. Christina Scartelli ’19 finished behind Rauls in the 1000-meter race and first-year Kaitlyn Siegel ’20 placed fifth in the high jump with a 1.57-meter jump.
The purple and white took fourth and fifth place in the 60-meter dash, with Isabel Park ’20 and Emily Flaherty ’19 crossing the finish line back-to-back in 8.80 and 8.85 seconds, respectively. Competing in the 200-meter dash for the first time for Amherst, soccer standout and track newcomer Rubii Tamen ’19 sprinted to a fifth place finish in 27.58 while teammate Anna Buford ’20 finished sixth in 29.14.
The purple and white impressed in the mid-distance contests, with Savanna Gornisiewicz ’17 capturing a second place spot in the 3000-meter run with a mark of 10:27.89, and third and fifth place finishes in the one-mile run as Kristin Ratliff ’20 and Lela Walter ’19 recorded times of 5:31.75 and 5:36.10 respectively.
Competing in the 400-meter dash — twice around the indoor track — Julia Asin ’19 finished fourth with a mark of 1:02.03, while also having a hand in the team’s third place finish in the 4x400-meter relay with Tamen, Katherine Hom ’19 and Danielle Griffin ’18.
In both the 600-meter run and the 800-meter events, the purple and white claimed fourth and fifth place finishes as Molly Carleton ’19 and Jenny Mazzella ’20 competed in the 600-meter run with times of 1:47.15 and 1:48.18, and first-years Sylvia Frank and Annie Pascucci competed in the 800-meter run.
After a sub-par team performance at the Little Three meet, the women impressed the next weekend, Jan. 21, by taking second place overall at the 11-team Benyon Invitational. The purple and white’s five individual wins helped earn them 127 points to finish just behind Assumption College and beat out the Cardinals of Wesleyan by just 3.5 points.
The 4x200 relay team of Herold, Hom, Asin and Tamen set the tone for the purple and white, securing a second place finish in the race with a time of 1:51.02. Amherst continued to impress in the mid-distance events: Gornisiewicz finished first in the one-mile run with a mark of 5:12.63, while Kristin Ratliff ’20 placed fifth with a time of 5:24.28, and Tess Frenzel ’17 legged out a fourth place finish in the 3000-meter race with a mark of 10:43.05. Rauls and Walter earned third and fourth in the 1,000 meter race with times of 3:08.44 and 3:10.06, respectively.
Danielle Griffin ’18 sprinted to another individual victory for Amherst in the 500-meter run with a time of 1:23.75. In the 4x400-meter relay race, Griffin, Mazzella, Scartelli and Frank finished third with a time of 4:24.60. Rounding out the relays for the purple and white, Walter, Gornisiewicz, Ratliff and Cat Lowdon ’17 secured a first-place finish in the 4x800-meter race.
In the field events, junior Abbey Asare-Bediako secured first in the triple jump with a winning jump of 11.03 meters, and Herold dominated the high jump once again with a leap of 1.67 meters, earning her first-place.
The women will compete again this Saturday, Jan. 28 against NESCAC competition at the Tufts Invitational tournament.
