Track
Hosts First Home Meet
by Jacob Kramer-Duffield
Oberlins
womens track team continued their solid early-season form
against the College of Wooster last Friday, and the mens team
again saw several good individual performances in the meet. Additionally,
last Friday and Saturday senior Anna Ruth and junior Emily Enderle
journeyed to Defiance College to compete in the Yellow Jacket Classic
Heptathlon, where they finished second and third, respectively.
In
the Wooster meet, Oberlins sprinters and relay teams continued
their dominance. Both the mens and womens teams won
the 4x400m relay, with the womens team also capturing the
4x100m relay. Oberlin sprinters walked away with both mens
and womens 200m victories, with senior Frederick Jackson and
junior Courtney Stackhouse, respectively, winning the races. There
was a similar Oberlin sweep of the 400m hurdles, where first-year
Bret Petersen took it for the men and first-year Teresa Collins
winning it for the women, and of the 400m dash, where senior Andre
Street won the mens race and sophomore Amber Coleman winning
the womens.
The women took home victories in every track event, and two of the
six field events. Stackhouse tabbed another win in the 100m, and
senior April Wynn won the 100m hurdles. In the longer runs, first-year
Shannon Morris notched a win in the 800m and first-year Amanda Wardlaw
in the 1500m. Last Friday I felt great, so I just went with
that feeling and ran a good race. Im hoping to do the same
thing this coming Saturday, Wardlaw said.
The womens wins in the field came from sophomore Sarah Bennett
in the high jump and sophomore Shannon Houlihan edging out teammates
Wynn and Collins in the triple jump.
The mens team notched another victory in the meet with first-year
Ben Stanley taking an impressive 11-second win in the steeplechase.
Additionally, a major improvement on the mens side from the
previous week came from sophomore Kiel Rohrbacher, whose fifth-place
finishes in the javelin and discus were both personal records. Rohrbacher,
who also garnered a fourth-place finish in the shotput, said, I
think the team performed extremely well. We had some good times,
heights, and distances last week and we hope to see them carry over
to the all-Ohio meet this weekend. The rest of the season, though
extremely short, is looking very good for us.
The heptathlon in which Ruth and Enderle competed last weekend was
the first for either since the spring of 2000, and Enderle was happy
with the results. I am pleased with my performance because
it signified a return to the level where I feel comfortable, prepared,
and focused enough to be competitive, Enderle said. Most
of all Im just really happy to be competing again and am excited
about the upcoming meets.
Enderle also said that she felt a particular bond with heptathlon
cohort Ruth, since, Anna and I spend most of our practice
time together in a somewhat isolated way; every day were doing
something different with a different group of tracksters. Because
of this we have developed our own team dynamic, creating a very
comfortable team away from team experience whenever were separated
from the entire team. Having Anna, a very supportive teammate and
great athlete, to compete beside in practice and at multi-event
meets is an advantage, her presence enriches the experience.
Nevertheless, Enderle said that, I definitely did miss the
support and entertainment the entire team atmosphere provides and
am looking forward to rejoining the group in future meets.
Today and tomorrow the mens and womens teams jump back
into action in the Division III All-Ohio meet, hosted by Ohio Wesleyan
University, in Delaware, Ohio.
|