Amherst women’s volleyball ended their season this week with a strong showing in their first NCAA tournament appearance since 2010. The Firedogs travelled to Boston to play Johnson & Wales University on Friday night and with that win advanced to face host MIT on Saturday evening.
The Amherst women’s soccer team captured a win in the first round of the NCAA tournament before suffering a season-ending loss to 11th-ranked Brandeis University (15-2-4) in a game that was decided in penalty kicks. The purple and white conclude the 2015 season ranked 16th in the nation and with an overall record of 11-3-3.
“I feel extremely fortunate to have played with this team,” captain Jessy Hale ’16 said. “Every player brought something different on the field, but more importantly for our team chemistry. This truly is a special group that was a privilege to be a part of.”
With a win over Morrisville State in the second round of the NCAA Tournament on Sunday, Nov. 15 on Hitchcock Field, the sixth-ranked men’s soccer team advances to the Sweet 16 for the sixth consecutive season and the eighth time in the past nine years. After the victory against Morrisville State, Amherst stands at 15-1-1 with a maximum of four games remaining in the season.
Mohamed Hussein ’18 took first place overall for the fifth time this season, remaining unbeaten against Div. III competition this season. His performance, along with the other competing Amherst runners, helped the purple and white take second place in a field of 55 teams at the NCAA Northeast Regional meet this past Saturday. Amherst narrowly missed nabbing the first-place title, falling by just one point to their rival.
Hussein took the first-place title by finishing the race in 24:39, an improvement upon his fifth place finish at the meet last year and time of 25:30.
After biology lab on Thursday, I walked into Frost not expecting much as the memory of Day of Dialogue was still fresh. Filled with people mostly dressed in black, Frost had been claimed as a political space: Amherst students had transformed the physical space of Frost into a home, a political arena and a model of a new Amherst, ushering in a new set of Amherst values and an unprecedented political awakening amongst many.
The sit-in at Frost Library last Thursday was supposed to last an hour. Most of us expected to leave the library at 2 p.m., believing we would make it to our afternoon classes and evening commitments. Instead, many people stayed in the library for nearly four days straight. Students, faculty, staff and administrators stayed for hours to listen to students speak about their experiences of racism and other forms of discrimination at the college. Students of color shared painful experiences of being marginalized and of feeling invisible yet hyper-exposed.
Last weekend, the Amherst College women’s cross country team traveled to Waterford, Connecticut to compete in the NCAA Northeast Regional meet. They came in seventh place out of the field of 56 teams at the event, with a final point total of 226.
Savanna Gornisiewicz ’17 put in yet another strong performance and finished first for Amherst and 18th overall with a time of 22:05. While she improved upon her time from last year, she was not able to improve upon her ninth-place result from 2014.
