Ethan Miller April 28, 2009

League track meet opens with multi-events at Central

PELLA—The first of two weekends of competition in the Iowa Conference men’s and women’s track and field championships begins Friday at Central College. The men’s decathlon and women’s heptathlon will be contested Friday and Saturday at Ron and Joyce Schipper Stadium. The remainder of the league meet is slated for the following weekend, May 8-9.      

Action starts with the 100-meter hurdles in the heptathlon Friday at 3 p.m. with the decathlon opening with the 100-meter dash at 3:15 p.m.

Multi-event tradition—Associate head coach Guy Mosher has received national recognition for his work in the multi-events and that’s translated to success on the track at Central. Since the events were first contested in the Iowa Conference meet in 2003, the Dutch have captured four heptathlon titles and three decathlon crowns. Under Mosher’s direction Central has captured six NCAA decathlon/heptathlon crowns with five runners-up.

Dutch leaders—Teams are limited to two entries in the multi-events. Central’s Greg Foote (senior, Maple Grove, Minn.) was third with 5,711 points in last year’s league meet but the Dutch will go this week with Kurtis Brondyke (sophomore, Clinton) and Ethan Miller (freshman, Seymour), who scored 6,088 and 6,085 points respectively, each topping the NCAA Division III meet provisional qualifying standard.

Central lost last year’s heptathlon champ, Kari Hutchinson, to graduation but returns Jill Ziskovsky (sophomore, Dallas Center, Dallas Center-Grimes HS), who was third with4,087 points. She’s also topped the NCAA provisional mark earlier this season with 4,164 points.

First-year head coach Joe Dunham and Mosher are still pondering whether to plug in Caitlin Wilson (freshman, Oakland, Riverside HS) or Carissa Bentz (junior, Ute, Boyer Valley HS) to the other spot. Wilson scored 4,099 points earlier this year while Bentz logged 4,040.

“Carissa has really come on in the last three weeks,” Dunham said. “We’re still debating.”

Since the decathlon/heptathlon is not contested frequently, Dunham isn’t sure what to expect from the competition, but likes having the decathlon contested a week prior to the remainder of the league meet, allowing enough recovery time for athletes to perform well in other events.

“It’s great because you get the best athletes from across the conference,” he said. “It makes it more exciting. It should be a great weekend.”

Dunham said the key to his athletes’ success in the multi-events is to maintain an even keel throughout the lengthy competition.

“They need to keep their focus through each event,” he said. “If an event goes bad, they need to wash it off and get on with the next event. If you lose your focus, it can affect the rest of the weekend. They need to be confident in what they can do, be relaxed and have fun.”