In an encouraging start to the outdoor track and field season, Oberlin’s women’s team won the Case Western Reserve University Invite, and the men’s team placed fifth out of eight teams, only one point out of fourth place.

According to senior Anna Ruth, the victory was an unexpected but welcome surprise: “We usually use most of our meets up to the conference meet just for individual training — some people don’t compete, most people don’t do exactly what they’re going to do at the conference meet — so we usually don’t think much about our team standings until the conference meet. That’s why it was a nice little surprise to see us take the Case meet.”
The women’s team placed in 12 events overall, with first-year Shannon Morris winning the 1500m, and both the 4x100m and 4x400m teams also taking away victories. Despite their short numbers and lower placing, the men’s team also walked away with two victories — senior Andre Street in the 800m and first-year Bret Petersen in the 400m intermediate hurdles — and two solid second-place finishes, with sophomore Jeremy Lane placing after Petersen in the 400m intermediate hurdles and the 4x400m relay team taking second in a very tough relay field.

“We have been working hard and the pay off will soon be here,” first-year Ryan McGinnis said. “All-Ohio and the conference meet will both be good meets to put up some [personal records]. We should turn some heads in the near future.”
The women’s team was nothing short of dominant in their victory, beating out second-place Cuyahoga Community College by 23 points, 120 to 97. According to junior Emily Enderle, “By winning, we reinforced to ourselves and others that we are very competitive.”

The Yeowomen finished strongly in a variety of events, from the field sports to distance running to the springs. In the field, Enderle placed third and Ruth fifth in the javelin; in the high jump, sophomore Sarah Bennett finished in a three-way tie for second; sophomore Shannon Houlihan placed third and senior April Wynn fourth in the long jump; and Houlihan, first-year Teresa Collins and sophomore Faye Doherty swept the two through four places in the triple jump.
For sophomore Meagan Dunphy-Daly, the meet was an eye-opener: “I was very impressed at how good the Oberlin women’s team is,” she said. “This was my first track meet, and they are amazingly fast.”
Indeed, the Yeowomen were even more dominant in the sprints, where in addition to the relay victories, Ruth taking fourth in the 100m high hurdles, with Collins and first-year Leslie Bosworth took second and third in the 400m intermediate hurdles. Senior Nzinga Broussard placed third in the 200m and 100m, with junior Courtney Stackhouse taking second in the 100m.

On the men’s side, senior Frederick Jackson put in solid performances in finishing fourth in the 200m and third in the 100m sprints. According to Jackson, there is still much room for improvement: “Right now my times are respectable. However, I won’t be pleased until I am running a lot faster. I know that the speed is there, it’s just a matter of being patient and letting it come out.”
Lane, in addition to placing second in the 400m intermediate hurdles, took home a respectable third-place showing in the triple jump. Other good performances from the Yeomen included McGinnis’ fifth-place finish in the 5000m and junior Greg Wells’ fifth-place finish in the 110m high hurdles. Wells also took home ninth place in the javelin, where sophomore Kiel Rohrbacher finished 18th.
According to Rohrbacher, “For me, the Case Invite was the first time that I was able to throw the javelin and I did fairly well considering this. I think that the indoor season was a little disappointing to all of us who competed. We all hoped to do a little better than we did as a team, but that is in the past. We are looking forward to the outdoor season and hope to keep performing to the best of our abilities.”

The teams’ next competition is a home meet today at 4:30 p.m. at Dill Field against the College of Wooster.