Outdoor track season takes off; indoor looks to Nationals
By Aleta Cox
The Quaker track teams opened up the outdoor season with a bang at last weekend’s Hanover Invite, where the men’s team finished third and women seventh, each of 10 teams.
The men featured four individual winners while the women had two, which boosted the team’s standings at Saturday’s meet. Bellarmine University of Kentucky won the meet for the women while Rose Hulman captured the men’s title.
On the women’s side, junior Ramona Hemmings and sophomore Elizabeth Ross both placed first in their respective events. Hemmings had a distance of 34’41/4” feet to win the triple jump and also added a leap of 16’1” in the long jump to take second in that event. Ross cleared 5’03/4” feet for the win in the high jump.
“This past meet was not as challenging as some of the other meets we’ve gone to - the height that I won at was the starting height for the day. Looking down the road, my goal is to work my hardest and qualify for nationals,” said Ross.
Also notable from this weekend’s meet was the 400-meter relay team of seniors Cassie Gage and Erin Witham, freshman Natasha Norman and sophomore Nikki Darrett. A time of 51.72 seconds earned them second in the event.
“Being that this was our first outdoor track meet and we had not run together, we were all a little nervous about the day. Our hand-offs, where one runner passes the baton to the next runner, were not the best; they could have been a little cleaner,” Darrett said. “It is encouraging, however, that we still seemed to do well and finished second, so if we can clean up those hand-offs, we will only keep doing better.”
On the men’s side, seniors Chris Shaw and Bo Braun, junior Chad Wertman and sophomore Jonathan Dyson were all winners at Hanover. Shaw won the discus throw with a distance of 159’6”. Wertman finished with a toss of 51’83/4” to win the shot put.
“It was a great feeling to come out in the first meet and be right back where I ended the season last year,” said Shaw. “I was also able to hit the provisional marker for this meet, which places me as the number eight thrower in the nation right now.”
Both Wertman and Shaw’s throws were good enough to be provisional qualifying marks for the National Collegiate Athletic Association Outdoor Championships later this spring. This means that they hit a certain standard in their respective events that ranks them among the top in the nation, but is not a guaranteed ticket to Nationals.
Dyson won the long jump with a leap of 20’9 3/4,” while Braun won the 400-meter dash in 50.4 seconds, respectively.
Several other men’s team members placed in the top three in their events. Sophomore Jacob Naegeli came in second for the 10,000-meter run with a time of 33:22, while sophomore Sean McGuire placed third in the 1,500-meter run with a personal best of 4:06.84. Junior Lenden Bowsman, with a time of 51.79 seconds, contributed a third-place finish in the 400-meter run.
The Quakers continued their outdoor season against several teams at the Anderson Invitational in Anderson, Ind. yesterday afternoon, but the results were too late to print.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
