Track travels to Atlanta

On Saturday, March 20, the women's and men's outdoor track teams took a long, yet somewhat comfortable trip to Atlanta to compete against 22 other collegiate schools. The runners awakened at 5 a.m. with thoughts of the Great Georgia Peach dancing in their heads. Packing their spikes and batons into 3 Oberlin College vans, the Yeorunners yawn constantly as they stand and wait to leave on that dreary, Tuesday morning. It was early, but they were ready.

Many of the 15 runners were excited about the trip; it has been a while since the team has traveled such a distance. "I was looking forward to going. It was relaxing and very resting. We had a lot of fun." For the first three days of the trip it rained. Although, by the day before and the day of the meet Atlanta begin to turn up the heat.

Senior Sean Wesolowski shed some light on his feeling towards the trip. "It was a different feeling going there. We were going to see new teams; I was so use to the ones we usually compete against [in Ohio]. I felt a little out of place." Going into a new environment with new runners can be intimidating for some, but exciting for others. These runners showed little fear.

Compared to those present at the meet, Oberlin represented one of the smaller schools, but they represented well. The men, in particular, had very few runners present. In the 200m dash Wesolowski did not place in the top 6, but finished with a positive time of 23.83 seconds, one not far from first place (22.65, Clayton State). "I think I did okay for the first meet," he said. "I wish I could've done better, though. If we would've had more runners, we probably would have had more points." There were only five men who competed for Oberlin in the meet.

Another Yeoman runner, Dan Blackburn, also performed adequately for the first outdoor meet. He, too, did not place in the top six places for the events that he performed, but performed well. Blackburn threw a 38'8" in the shot put event, just ahead of Jason Cunningham's 37'1. Cunningham threw just as well for a different event, discus, with a distance of 116'2, just ahead of Blackburn's throw of 106'3.

Sophomore Zach Rudisin ran a 11.86 in the 100m dash, while first-year Aaron Mucciolo clocked in with a time of 12.88 for the same event.

The Yeowomen also showed genuine speed and agility. Christina Nwofor did not place in the top six for the 100m, in which she is now ranked 3rd in the conference, but ran a notable time of 13.58 for that race. When asked how she felt about her time she stated, " I feel that I did well for the first meet, but I haven't warmed up yet."

Senior Amie Ely placed third in the 100m hurdles with a time of 15.94. Sophomore Cheryl Courtice finished with a time of 20.44 in the same event. Freshman Nzinga Broussard was just one place shy from being in the top six places for the 400m dash; she ran a 61.23 for this intense and tiresome event. Another freshman, Apryl Wynn who is also Broussard's basketball teammate, did not finish in the top spots, but jumped a height of 4'8 for the high jump event. The first place runner for that event had a height of 5'2.

This was a definite change of pace for the Yeorunners. Atlanta was just visited by another Oberlin team in February (women's basketball), and now they've been hit by the strong wind that tailed behind the Yeorunners. As they dashed around the track, they felt the heat. With no intention of having fear, and with no thought that those who they were running against were from Division I and Division II schools. These Yeorunners represented well for the first outdoor meet and were satisfied with their performance.

Nwofor finalized the meet by stating, "I think we ran great! It was nice to run in the sun in such a big meet with quality athletes."