Around the Herd: May 3 to May 9 in Athletics

Men’s Lacrosse

After beating Bowdoin last week in the NESCAC tournament’s quarterfinal, the Mammoths went to Medford to face Tufts in the tournament’s semifinal. As the best team in the tournament, the Jumbos proved to be a formidable opponent as they took an early three-goal lead to start the game. Amherst was able to fight back to a 4-3 deficit but again the Jumbos scored four goals in a row to expand their lead. After the two teams traded goals for two quarters, the fourth quarter began with a 15-11 score.

Mitch Likins ’26 was able to make three saves to begin the quarter, and even assist Tanyr Krummenacher ’24 on one of two goals that helped the Mammoths rally to 15-13. Still, it was not enough as Tufts scored five successive goals to stamp their victory. The 20-13 loss ended Amherst’s NESCAC tournament run. The NCAA D3 Men’s Lacrosse team begins this weekend; Amherst will face SUNY Geneseo in the first round this Saturday.

Baseball

The baseball team’s season ended this past weekend with a loss to Tufts in the NESCAC tournament. Amherst started off with a dominant 6-0 lead after the top of the first inning but didn’t score again during the entire game. They only recorded three more hits after the first inning while letting up thirteen hits and twelve runs to lose 6-12. In the second game, Amherst fell down 3-0 to a Tufts home run in the fifth inning but was able to slowly fight back with consistent single base hits and walks, allowing them to score a few runs every inning. Additionally, through some excellent pitching and defense, Amherst was able to shut down the Jumbos and tie up the series with a Game 2 score of 8-3. The third game started off pretty evenly as the two teams traded runs, but completely got out of hand as Tufts recorded seven unanswered runs in the fourth and fifth innings. The Mammoths were never able to come back, as their season ended in a 5-12 loss in their third game against Tufts.

Softball

The softball team ended their regular season with a 1-1 split in a doubleheader in Maine against Colby. In the first game, some lousy pitching led to a lot of walks and almost no hits throughout six innings. During the top of the seventh, a walk and two base hits led to the only run in the game as the Mammoths won 1-0. The second game was pretty similar with no teams recording a hit in the first three innings. Randi Finkelstein ’24 recorded Amherst’s only hit of the game as they lost 0-8.

Track and Field

The men's and women’s track and field teams went to Springfield College to compete in the New England DIII Outdoor Championships. The men tied their best-ever score at the meet with 53.5 points, finishing in fourth place. MIT finished first for the eighth consecutive year. Jordan Harrison ’26 was the clear highlight of the meet, breaking the Amherst school record with a 10.55 in the 100m dash.

The team’s second-best finish was in the 4x100m where Cody Pierce ’26, Alexander Nichols ’26, Harrison, and Benjamin Bell ’23 ran a 41.95 to finish in second place. David Brown ’25, Ben Davis ’26, Will Nagy ’26, Camden Heafitz ’25, and Gabe dos Santos ’24 all earned All-New England Honors in their respective events.

The women’s team finished in eighth place with a meet score of 38 points while MIT finished in first for the second year in a row. Eliza Cardwell and Arissa Grace McGowan showed out in the 100m with times of 14.20 and 14.55 to finish third and fourth in the race, respectively. Since the race had a significant enough tailwind the times did not count for any records. Mary Kate McGrahanan ’23 finished second in the 3000m steeplechase with a time of 10:53.64. Allison Lounsbury ’26, Casie Eifrig ’25, Carolina Andrade ’24, Julia Schor ’25, Trintje Nydam ’26, Mads Rabb ’26, and Myeh Medina ’26 all earned All-New England Honors in their respective events.