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Jan. 31, 2009Strong debut for Central
BLOOMINGTON, ILL.—Despite getting a relatively late start to the indoor season, the Central College men’s and women’s track and field squads opened with encouraging showings at the Illinois Wesleyan Univ. Titan Open Saturday.
The Dutch men were fourth in a balanced 19-team field, scoring 50 points. Host Illinois Wesleyan won with 58.5, followed by Lewis (Ill.) with 57 and Lindenwood (Mo.) with 55. The Central women were seventh out of 12 squads with 24.5 points. Illinois Wesleyan, the defending NCAA Division III champion, rolled up 150.3 points to take first.
“For nearly all of these teams, it was their third meet,” first-year coach Joe Dunham said following his Central debut. “That’s a huge difference. But I thought we performed really well. I was pretty happy.”
Matt Graber (sophomore, Newton) blew past his previous career best in earning provisional qualifying status in the shot put for the NCAA Division III indoor meet. He was third at 51 feet, 6.5 inches, more than 2 feet beyond his previous best. He also was sixth in the weight throw at 50-6.25.
Jaron Byrum (senior, Mount Union, New London HS) won the 5,000-meters in 16:16.14 and led a trio of placewinners. Andrew Hamer (freshman, Murray) was third in 16:50.83 and Austin Vondracek (sophomore, Swisher, Cedar Rapids Prairie HS) was fourth in 16:54.15.
First-year coach Joe Dunham also liked the debut of freshman Ethan Miller (Seymour) who cleared 6-6 in the high jump and narrowly missed at 6-10.
“He was really jumping well,” Dunham said.
Matt Patrick (junior, Dallas Center, Dallas Center-Grimes HS) was fourth in the 400 meters in 51.64 seconds and led off the 4x400-meter relay unit that also included Luke Bolander (junior, Des Moines, East HS), Connor Daily (sophomore, Ottumwa) and Alex Miller (junior, Adel, Van Meter HS) that finished in 3:28.27.
Dunham also cited Teddy Clark (senior, Montgomery, Ill., Oswego HS) who was fourth in the mile in 4:27 with Derek Townsend (junior, Perry) finishing in 4:37.
Boeke in shot—Rachel Boeke (senior, Cedar Rapids, Jefferson HS) in the shot put 12.66
Angie Berry (junior, Norwalk) was fourth in the 5,000 meters in 18:55.40. Jill Ziskovsky (sophomore, Dallas Center, Dallas Center-Grimes HS) was sixth in the long jump at 16-0.75. She also ran the third leg of the 4x400-meter relay which finished in 4:11. Joining her on the unit were Emily Teas (sophomore, Indianola), Amanda Mosinski (sophomore, Packwood, Pekin HS) and Rachelle Tipton (junior, Newton). Teas was sixth in the 200 meters (27.16 seconds) and seventh in the 55 meters (7.56 seconds).
Complete results were not yet available Saturday night.
Central travels to Mount Vernon next Saturday for the Hilltopper Invitational at Cornell College. The Dutch also competed last year.