In the second Oberlin Invitational of the season, the Oberlin men’s and women’s indoor track and field teams wrapped up the regular season on Friday, highlighted by the men’s 1600m relay team, which set new Oberlin and John Heisman Field House records. The season will come to a close over the weekend in the NCAC’s Championship today and Saturday.

“I think right now every one of our people who have been with us have made good progress,” Head Coach Tom Mulligan said. “We’re starting to come together as a team.”

The 1600m relay team, comprised of senior Andre Street, sophomore Jeremy Lane, and first-years Ryan McGinnis and Bret Petersen, came together to complete the event in 3:29.1, beating out the nearest competitor by nearly nine seconds. Unfortunately, Oberlin’s automatic clock malfunctioned, so all events were timed by hand. Because of this, all official NCAC times are 0.24 seconds higher than Oberlin’s times. Despite this, the relay team’s time, even with the runoff, marked the best in the conference this season.

Relays proved to be strong all around for Oberlin’s runners. The men’s 4x200 team of Street, Lane, Petersen and first-year Travis Oman ran its best race of the season, with 1:35.7, finishing second to Walsh College by two seconds. The time was the fourth best in the NCAC this year.
Setting a record for the John Heisman Field House, the women’s 4x200 team of senior Apryl Wynn, junior Courtney Stackhouse, and first-years Teresa Collins and Magdalen Dale posted its best time of the season, with 1:48.1, beating out Defiance College by over three seconds, and setting the conference’s best mark for the year.
Other standouts on the men’s side were McGinnis’s 800m run of 2:02.6, good for a second place finish, and Street’s 50.7 in the 400m, which was not only the best time in the race, but the best in the conference this season. Oberlin has the top two spots in the event for the season, as Petersen’s 51.58 from Feb. 15 is second in the conference. Street’s time is less than a second away from the NCAA Championship provisional qualification time of 50 seconds.

The women’s team looked even better, with 12 top-five finishes on top of the relay.
Sophomore Shannon Houlihan took the long jump by an inch with 15’ 3.25” and the triple jump by a foot and half with 34’ 4.5”. Dale placed fourth in the long jump with 14’ 1”, while sophomore Faye Doherty placed fourth in the triple jump with 32’ 0.5”. Doherty’s mark gives the Yeowomen four of the season’s top 10 marks in the conference, with Wynn, Houlihan and Collins in third, fourth and fifth, and Doherty in eighth.
Wynn placed second in the 55m hurdles, with teammate senior Anna Ruth placing sixth. Both Yeowomen have times in the top 10 this season, along with first-year Leslie Bosworth.
Stackhouse and Collins dominated the sprinting events, placing first and second, respectively, in both the 55m dash, and the 200m, with times of 7.1 and 7.2 and 26.6 and 26.7.
“She scared me into running faster,” Stackhouse said of Collins, while Collins said that in order to do well, “somebody has to be right on [Stackhouse’s] butt.”
Stackhouse’s time in the 55m was second best in the conference. Even with the runoff, the time would provisionally qualify her for the national championship, but the NCAA may not accept an imprecise time.
“That’s not one of my big objectives,” Stackhouse said of qualifying for nationals.
About national qualifications, Mulligan said, “That’s a cherry on top of the ice cream. Our goal is not to get national qualifiers, it’s to have our team.”
Collins’ time in the event, with the runoff, was fourth in the conference and only a one-hundredth of a second away from provisional qualification. Stackhouse and Collins are fourth and fifth, respectively, in the 200m for the conference.
“I went in there doing things I hadn’t done before,” Collins said. “It was supposed to be a fun meet. I wasn’t really expecting to do that well.”
Rounding out the top finishers, Oberlin runners Dale, first-year Shannon Morris and sophomore Amanda Wardlaw each took third place in the 400m, the 800m and the 1500m, respectively.
The team has lightened its workload some this week in preparation for the NCAA Championship, which begins today and continues tomorrow. Denison University will host the meet this year.
“It’s always fun to get into those kinds of meets,” Mulligan said of the championship. “The ante’s raised. The lights are on. It’s fun to see how athletes respond under those conditions.”
Starting tomorrow at Denison, the Yeomen and Yeowomen will find out.