At right: Emmie Mirarchi (left) and Cate Bates show off their awards earned at the Mount Holyoke Show on Oct. 29, 2022.

SOUTH HADLEY, Mass. -- The Mount Holyoke College riding team hosted its first show of the season on Saturday and won the High Point College Award for its third consecutive show.

Individual performances were highlighted by sophomore Cate Bates (Montclair, N.J.) winning overall High Point Rider honors, and junior Emmie Mirarchi (Harvard, Mass.) being named Intermediate High Point Rider of the day. At the end of the day, Cate Bates was called back to ride off, ending in her securing the Overall High Point Rider title. Bates additionally earned Limit High Point.

Mount Holyoke finished the day with 44 points to secure the High Point College award. UMass-Amherst and Amherst College followed, tying for Reserve High Point College with 32 points each. Rounding out the team scores were Worcester State (22), Smith (21), Springfield (17), WPI (13) and Williams (9).

Senior Georgia Fish (Baltimore, Md.) and first-year Olivia Simon (Sacramento, Calif.) started the day with beautiful rides in Open Fences, with Fish finishing third and Simon sixth. Next, Mirarchi had a gorgeous Intermediate Fences debut to finish first. In the second section of Intermediate Fences, senior Caroline Sullivan (Groton, Mass.) delivered a strong ride to place fourth.

Four sections of Limit Fences followed. In the first, senior Johanna Sullivan (Worcester, Mass.) and senior Acadia Ferrero-Lampron (Denver, Colo.) had lovely trips to finish third and fifth, respectively. Next, seniors Kristen Adolf (Moore, S.C.) and Marlene Healey (Coventry, Conn.) put in stunning rides to finish first and fourth. The third section saw senior Daniela Fraser (Vero Beach, Fla.) and junior Sunita Pearson-Siegel (Brooklyn, N.Y.) have beautiful trips over fences. Fraser finished third and Pearson-Siegel finished sixth in her over-fences debut. Finally, Bates and senior Rachel Banister (San Diego, Calif.) had strong rides to finish first and fourth, respectively. The jumping classes wrapped up with Alumni Fences, where Mount Holyoke alum Maya Brody '20 rode beautifully to finish fifth in her class.

After clearing the ring and a short schooling break, the day moved on to the flat portion. First in the ring were three sections of Introductory. In the first, sophomore Azuna Sawada had a gorgeous ride to finish first in her class. Sophomore Ririka Kakuta (Tokyo, Japan) and junior Lingdang Zhang then delivered stunning rides for a one-two finish. In the last section, junior Kerina Li (Guangzhou, China) and sophomore Amy Fujioka (Tokyo, Japan) also had lovely rides for another one-two finish. Both Zhang and Fujioka had great rides in their IHSA debuts!

Next in the ring, Brody returned for the Alumni Flat class, finishing fourth.

The ring then saw two sections of Open Flat. In the first, Simon returned with a strong ride to finish fourth in their class. In the second section, Johanna Sullivan delivered a stunning ride in her Open Flat debut to finish fourth. In the single section of Intermediate Flat, Mirarchi and Fish returned to the ring with beautiful rides to finish second and third respectively.

Two sections of Pre-Novice were next. senior Xike Zhao (Shenyang, China) rode masterfully to a blue ribbon in the first section. In the second, senior Alex Taylor (Feeding Hills, Mass.) put forth a strong ride to finish fifth in her class. Following were three sections of Limit Flat, the first of which saw first-year Hallie Phillips (Santa Rosa, Calif.) and Ferrero-Lampron submit tactful rides to finish second and third. Next, Bates returned to the ring with a remarkable ride to capture another blue ribbon. The final section of Limit had Sullivan and Pearson-Siegel return to the ring with incredible rides, finishing first and third, respectively.

The day wrapped up with three sections of Novice Flat. First-year Josephine Nicholas (Cohasset, Mass.) put down a stunning ride in her IHSA debut to finish second in her class. first-year Emma Cantalupo (Candia, N.H.)  was next with a great ride to finish first in the second section. Finally, junior Elliott Candela (Maynard, Mass.) rode beautifully, finishing third in his class.

Mount Holyoke competes again Sunday at the Smith and UMass-Amherst Show at Muddy Brook Farm in Amherst, Mass.

-- Reporting by Acadia Ferrero-Lampron '23