By EVAN JARASHOW
Staff Writer
 

Two major upsets took place at the Springbrook Golf Course, the site of this year's meet: Bowdoin (unranked) edged out Amherst (24th) for 4th place, and Freeman upset Amherst's Rob Mitchell, one of the favorites for the Division III National title. Mitchell boasts a third place finish this season at the Open New England championships, beating Freeman by 30 seconds. To put it bluntly, the head to head battle was incredible to watch. The two runners tried to pull away from each other for almost 4 miles, with each surge being matched. Freeman pulled away at the 4 mile mark and never looked back, ultimately winning by 22 seconds. At one point, Freeman opened up a 50 meter lead, so the focus of the race turned to whether or not he would challenge the 11 year old course record of 25:48 set by John Fitzgerald (Bates '86). Freeman ran 25:37, shattering the record by 11 seconds. Freeman and Mitchell should be in for a great match in two weeks at the New England Regional championships, to be held in Gorham, Maine.

To accompany Freeman, Mike Danahy '00 and Matt Twiest '00 also ran great races, finishing 7th and 10th respectively. Danahy tied for the 16th fastest time ever on the hilly and challenging course, by running a 26:35 and earning all NESCAC first-team honors. Twiest's performance earned him second-team all NESCAC honors, as he finished with a time of 26:53.

The `Cats scoring was closed out by Brendan Hahesy '00, and Steve Dutton '00. They finished 31st and 33rd overall with times of 27:42 and 27:49, respectively. Head coach Al Fereshetian said of the performance, "We did exactly what we wanted to do. We attacked up at the front of the race and closed out our scoring right with the teams we wanted to compete with. We executed very well."

One runner that cannot go without noticing is assistant coach and Bates Alum Sean "Colt" Galipeau '96. Colt claimed the Alumni/Open race title with a time of 28:22, showing that he can still run with the big-boys.....after all these years! Colt took the title in convincing fashion as he simply pulled away from a Connecticut College(?) runner starting at the two mile mark. Colt's performance captured both individual titles for Bates runners, and accented the kind of day that the `Cats put together as 11 runners took home personal records. In all, it was a great day to be a Bobcat.

One of the goals for the season has been to qualify for Nationals, so the team cannot rest with a 3rd place finish in NESCAC. The ECAC championships are this coming weekend, and the regional meet is in two weeks, so the training must continue. Although qualifying for Nationals is a goal that might be in the reach of the Bobcats, it will probably take personal bests from every runner competing to accomplish this goal. The main challenge will be for Brendan Hahesy '00, Steve Dutton '00, Adam Kessler '00, and John McGrath '00 (runners 4-7 for Bates) to close in on the top three and finish the scoring much sooner. If this can happen, we might be in for something fantastic in two weeks.