COLLEGE ROW
Ì SPORTS
MOMENTS TO
Remember
A mud-splashed victory. An undefeated season. A record-breaker. Seven members of the class of 2015 write about their most memorable experience as Amherst athletes.
Gabriel Wirz SOCCER We were playing Conn College at home in the NESCAC semifinals. It was homecoming, the weather was beautiful, and we had a huge crowd. We were the two seed and they were the eight seed, but within 15 seconds they scored one of the most beautiful goals I’ve ever seen. It could have been the knockout punch that ended our season. I made eye contact with Bubba Van Wie ’15 and Thomas Bull ’16. We smiled. Conn had just lit a fire under us, and we were about to hit back twice as hard. We went on to play the best half of soccer we’d played all season. I got a yellow card for excessively celebrating; I don’t regret it for a second.
Lizzy Briskin CROSS COUNTRY/TRACK AND FIELD Mud-splashed and panting from racing up the unrelenting Vermont hills, I took note of each of my teammates crossing the finish line at our NESCAC Championship meet at Middlebury on one of the windiest, rainiest Saturdays last fall. I silently recounted my team’s goals for the season: to send a team to nationals and to place in the top five at NESCACs. Today’s race could make or break our chances of racing at nationals. Nervous, we made our way back to our tent— which was miraculously still standing despite the headwinds—when our coach, Cassie Funke-Harris, shouted, “We came in third!” We dropped our clean, unworn warm-ups to the mucky ground and ran into a jumping, whooping huddle of joy. Looking at my teammates, three of whom I have raced with nearly every weekend for four years, I finally fully appreciated our team’s favorite saying, “The race is the reward.”
Chris Tamasi FOOTBALL Finishing the season undefeated and winning the NESCAC championship my senior year is a moment I will cherish forever. As we celebrated on Pratt Field after the game, I remember lighting up a cigar with my fellow seniors and never wanting to leave the field, knowing this was our last night in uniform. Though my athletic career ended that night against Williams, the relationships made with my teammates and coaches will last a lifetime. 12 Amherst Spring 2015