by Andrew Roembke

The Earlham College men’s and women’s track and field teams placed in six events this past weekend at the two-day Indiana Intercollegiate Championships at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). The Quakers were sparked by outstanding performances by senior leader Sara Bohall and sophomore thrower Chris Shaw.”I was very pleased with our efforts all around,” said Head Coach Nick Johnson of his teams. “We performed as well as we could with the horrible weather conditions, especially on the second day of competition,” he added, speaking of the harsh weather conditions over the weekend in Indianapolis that included frigid temperatures and heavy wind gusts.

The Quakers finished 14th of 23 schools on the men’s side, and on the women finished 13th of 22 schools. “We had really outstanding performances from Sara Bohall and Chris Shaw,” said Johnson.

Bohall came from behind to claim the 400-meter hurdles in a time of 1:04.33, while taking fourth in the 100-meter hurdles in a time of 15.37 seconds. This was the second year in a row that Bohall has won the state championship in the 400 hurdles.

Shaw had a great weekend, starting with a third-place finish in the discus. Not only did he place third with his throw of 167’1″, he broke a 40-year-old school record that was held by Mike Brown with a mark of 160’5″ in 1968. Shaw was also able to hit his provisional mark for National Championships.

“I’m happy that I was able to hit my provisional mark, and I’m confident that it will hold and I’ll go to Nationals,” Shaw said.

Due to his outstanding performance, Shaw was also named North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) Field Athlete of the Week for men’s track.

“It’s an honor to be named NCAC [Field] Athlete of the week because there are so many great throwers in our conference,” Shaw said.

There were many other performances of note this past weekend. Senior Nick Welsh took fourth in the javelin with a throw of 162’4″; freshman Chad Wertman, took fifth in shot put with a mark of 46’11 3/4″; and the 1,600-meter relay team including freshmen Ben Randall and Lenden Bowsman as well as sophomores Will Katz and Bo Braun, which took eighth with a time of 3:31.62.

Freshman Ben Randall explained the difficult conditions and how they affected the team’s time.

“Due to the cold and very strong winds our team suffered over the weekend. We struggled to be where we wanted to; however, we were still able to place,” he said.

Though the Quakers experienced a rough weekend in the weather department, they were able to battle through it and make a strong showing. Johnson was pleased with how everything went and is looking forward to the Earlham Invitational this weekend.

“I’m hoping that we will compete as well as we can against Mt. St. Joseph’s, stay healthy and strive to get better, looking forward to the NCAC Championships in two weeks,” he said.

The Quakers are at home this weekend for the Earlham Invitational, which will be a dual meet with the College of Mt. St. Joseph’s. The meet gets underway Saturday at 11 a.m.