Four of MC’s top runners team up for great time at UW-Whitewater

Release Date: February 28, 2005

MONMOUTH, Ill. — 6-2-4-8, who do we appreciate? The Monmouth College men’s distance medley relay team, of course.

The Fighting Scots’ quartet of Anthony Welty, Tyler Rundle, Kel Bond and Zach Barr completed their respective journeys around the track of six, two, four and eight laps in a school-record time of 10:05.00 on Saturday at the Karl Schlender Invitational, hosted by UW-Whitewater.

In addition to winning the race by more than 23 seconds over runner-up Whitewater, the group also posted the seventh-best time in the nation this year. They’ve trimmed roughly 24 seconds off their time from the beginning of the season, as Saturday’s splits were 3:06 for 1200 meters (Welty), 48.9 seconds for 400 meters (Rundle), 1:53.7 for 800 meters (Bond) and 4:14 for 1600 meters (Barr).

“They’ve had some pretty big improvements from the start of the year,” said MC coach Roger Haynes, who noted the group will not run together again until the national meet at Bloomington, Ill., March 11-12. All four will turn their focus more to individual events at the upcoming Midwest Conference Championships in Jacksonville, Ill., although Rundle will also be a part of the Scots’ sprint relays.

In those races, he’ll likely be joined by another star from last Saturday’s meet, Blake Boma, who swept the 55-meter dash and 55-meter hurdles, posting his two best times of the season in the process. Boma’s clocking of 6.48 seconds in the 55-meter dash was one one-hundredth shy of the school record, which is owned by former national champion Charles Burton. Both times were provisional qualifiers for the national meet.

Another sprinter, Brenda Herrera, also came up big for the Scots, taking second in both the 55-meter dash (7.55) and 200-meter dash (26.67). She also ran the lead leg of Monmouth’s 4x200 (1:48.08) and 4x400 (4:07.45) relay squads. The latter squad, which also included Megan McKenna, Kila Cox and Christina Reiner, placed first.

Reiner set one school record, clearing 10’5-1/2 while winning the pole vault, and Haynes reported that she almost made it a tremendous day in the field events. However, she narrowly fouled on three “monstrous” long jump and a 35-foot triple jump.

Cox, too, had a nice meet, posting a PR in the 200-meter dash (27.00) and joining Herrera, Tiffanie York and Jacquie Ouart on the 4x400 squad. York’s big contribution individually on the day was a school-record time of 2:21.39 in the 800-meter run.

“I thought the women overall had some pretty consistent performances,” praised Haynes.

That included the throwing events, where basketball players Whitney Shepherd and Lisa Curry participated in their first meet of the season and immediately made an impact. Shepherd had efforts of 44’0-3/4 in the weight throw, which was good for third place, and 35’6 in the shot put, while Curry launched a 41’4 weight throw. The duo is ranked third and sixth, respectively, among MWC weight throwers.

The most noteworthy accomplishment, though, was the vast improvement shown by Jen Babos. Two weeks ago, she set her personal bests of 36’1 in the weight throw and 31’10 in the shot put. At Whitewater, she added nearly 11 feet to those marks, putting the shot 36’5-3/4 and launching a 42’2-3/4 weight throw.

“Jen Babos had an incredible day,” said Haynes.

Hurdlers Brandy Whitson and Lindsay Ditzler were also on top of their game, posting PRs of 9.19 and 9.54 seconds, respectively. They finished 1-3 in the event. Andrea Emery added a 5’0 effort in the high jump to place second and McKenna had a PR of 33’4 in the triple jump.

Haynes also said that the women’s distance medley relay squad of Laura Turk, Erica Barnett, Joni Nelson and Audrey Bellefeuille ran well as they won their race in 14:13.24.

On the men’s side, Tim Frank won the high jump (6’6) and Johnathan Henkins, Peter Sprecher and Dane Justice all cleared 14’0 in the pole vault. Henkins and Sprecher placed 2-3 with vaults of 14’8-3/4. Brad Gross added a third place finish in the 400-meter dash (51.98) and Scott Heair took third in the 3000-meter run (9:28.54).

Monmouth’s men are well-prepared for the MWC Championships, and although a few colleges passed them in the latest power rankings, dropping MC to fifth nationally, the Scots should simply be too deep in too many events to be knocked off their throne.

The women’s meet is shaping up to be very competitive, according to Haynes.

“The jumps and the middle distance events are as even as they’ve been in a while,” he said. “We have a realistic shot (at the title), but we have a lot of untested people. We don’t have that one person who can score a whole bunch of points and carry the team. But I think the women have positioned themselves where they need to be.”

Men's Indoor Track  |  Women's Indoor Track