Around the Herd: March 21 to March 28 in Athletics

Hedi Skali ’25 Sports Editor

Women’s Lacrosse

The women’s lacrosse team continued improving their record this Friday against the Westfield State Owls. After Amherst tookthe initial lead, the Owls scored four straight goals to make it 4-1 halfway through the second quarter. Nevertheless, Senior Fiona Jones ’23 won a rebound, taking the ball away from the Owls goalie and passing it to Sydney Kang ’25 for the score. Each team traded goals, and the score grew to 5-3 with about five minutes left in the half. And yet, this proved to be enough time for Sydney Larsen ’23 to score an incredible goal from a free-position shot, Emily Petersen ’26 to score from a Larsen assist, and Clara Sosa ’26 faking her defender out in a 1v1, easily put the ball in the top of the net. Amherst took thelead 6-5 at the half, and never let go. Sosa scored 2 straight goals right out of the half and Petersen had another stellar 1v1 run to end the game at 11-8. On Tuesday, March 28, the Mammoths secured a summary four-game win streak with a 16-2 victory against the Keene State Owls.

Men’s Lacrosse

The men’s lacrosse team extended their win streak to four, after their games against Springfield College and St. John Fisher University on Wednesday, March 22 and Sat., March 25.

Their game against Springfield started off quite slow with the first quarter ending in a 1-1 score. About five minutes into the second quarter, midfielder Matt Adams ’23 scored, beginning a five unanswered goal streak ended by Adams with five seconds left in the half and making the score 6-1. At the start of the second half, it seemed like Springfield would fight back with a quick goal from midfielder, Jackson Lane. However, the Mammoths immediately staved off any comeback attempt with four goals of their own in only 70 seconds. Springfield was never able to come back, even though they scored three goals to end the game, granting Amherst a dominating 17-8 win.

Against St. John Fisher University, the Mammoths were the clear favorites as the Cardinals were 0-6 coming into Saturday. As expected, Amherst dominated the first quarter with eight straight goals after falling down a goal at the beginning of the game. They continued scoring at the startof the second quarter, extending their lead to 112. Like Springfield, all of the Cardinals’ attempts to remedy the deficit proved to be insignificant. The Mammoths outshot the Cardinals 60-38, winning the game 22-15.

Baseball

The baseball team recorded two losses against Western New England University and Wheaton College over the past week.

On Wednesday, March 22, Western New England went up 16 runs by the fourth inning, which proved to be too large of a margin for the Mammoths to come back from. Western New England won 27-12.

On Saturday, the Mammoths faced Wheaton College, who was coming in on a nine-game win streak. They continued their momentum to go up four runs in the bottom of the first inning, and while Amherst tried to catch up, they kept exchanging runs, and the comeback never arrived. The game ended with a score of 9-5.

Softball

In the past week, the softball team played two double headers against Worchester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and Bowdoin College.

In their first game against WPI, the Mammoths quickly got a 4-0 lead, with the notable highlight of a two-run homerun from Sadie Pool ’24. In the sixth inning, Randi

Finklestein ’24 sealed the win with her fourth home run of the season. The game ended 8-2 in favor of the Mammoths. In the second game, the Mammoths immediately fell 2-0 in the first inning, but, in the second inning, Abby Moravek ’26 got two runs in off of her double, and got herself home off of Rachel Lovejoy’s ’23 own double, ending the inning on top with a 3-2 score.

While Amherst fell 4-3 again, they were able to score five runs in fifth inning, mostly due to Finklestein’s three-run home run, her fifth of the season. The Mammoths held their lead, ending the game at 11-9.

In their first game against Bowdoin, Angelina Mayers hit a three run home run in the top of the second inning along with two other runs, and the Mammoths were never able to come back from the deficit, recording their third loss of the season. In their second game, however, Amherst didn’t evenlet Bowdoin score, recording their 13th win of the season in a 5-0 victory. First-year pitcher Abby Moravek only allowed one hit in the last five innings of the game, while also recording 2 RBI in her one hit of the game.