It would be difficult for the Lady Jeffs to experience more regular-season success in 2013 than they had in 2012.
To give some idea of the extent of the squad’s early-season dominance, the Jeffs won their first 22 games of 2012 while relinquishing more than three runs in only three of those contests.
After a rare loss to Keene State, the Jeffs didn’t seem to be fazed: they went on to win 12 of their next 13 and looked to be in position to coast to a NESCAC Championship.
To say that the Lord Jeffs have lost talent to graduation would be a considerable understatement.
Last year’s senior class featured two fearsome bats in the middle of the lineup, Mike Samela and Kevin Heller. In June of last year, Heller, the program’s all-time leader in four offensive categories, was selected by the Red Sox in the MLB Amateur Draft; after a stint in the Gulf Coast League, he was called up to the Class A Lowell Spinners in September.
SWIMMING
While the Jeffs’ men’s swimming team was unable to match the women by taking home another conference title, they did finish an impressive second at the NESCAC Championships, which were held at Wesleyan last weekend. Their total of 1824.5 points put them over 700 points ahead of their next closest competitor, Conn. College, and just 112 points behind Williams, who reeled off their 11th straight NESCAC title.
In each of the past four seasons, the Lady Jeffs had taken home second place at NESCACs, narrowly missing the first league championship in the program’s history. Now, the wait is finally over. Setting a school mark with 1927.5 points over the three-day NESCAC Championship event, the Lady Jeffs stormed into Brunswick, Maine and captured their first ever conference title.
SWIMMING
Men
Facing a historic performance from a stellar MIT squad, the Jeffs ultimately fell short, 178-116, despite several strong individual showings. The Engineers’ start was nearly impossible to overcome: MIT’s team of Bo Mattix, Michael Liao, Wyatt Ubellacker and Craig Cheney broke the pool record with a time of 1:33.42 in the 200 medley relay.
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.
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.
