National champion! National champion!
Barr, Boma win steeplechase, hurdle titles

Release Date: May 31, 2005

MONMOUTH, Ill. — Monmouth College waited 13 years to produce its third national champion in track and field. The Fighting Scots waited less than 24 hours to claim a fourth.

Zach Barr entered Friday evening’s steeplechase final at the Division III Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Waverly, Iowa, as the top-ranked runner, and he lived up to that billing, holding off Willamette University’s Aaron Hollingshead to win in wire-to-wire fashion in 9:03.19. Barr became Monmouth’s first national champion since Charles Burton in 1992.

When Burton won his title more than a decade ago, it came in the 400-meter hurdles, and that was the event that Monmouth’s Blake Boma won on Saturday afternoon. He entered both the preliminary round and the final with the nation’s top time, and he ran even faster in the biggest race of his career, posting a personal best of 51.78 to top Jeff Jasmin of Lincoln University by nearly half a second.

The 10 points apiece for Barr and Boma gave the Scots 20 points at the meet, which was good for 13th in the nation.

Roger Haynes, who has coached all four of MC’s national champions, said his latest pair of winners had “two interesting approaches” to their seasons and their peak races.

“Zach’s approach was the same as it always is,” said Haynes. “He knew that he would have the fastest final 1500 meters in the field, so he wanted to go out and run 71- or 72-second quarters and then rely on his speed. It turned out that he was able to run 73- and 74-second quarters and still be comfortably in the lead. I think that entering the race, a lot of the runners had already marked off their opportunity to beat him, and he was really only challenged by one runner.”

Hollingshead was on Barr’s heels for a while, but the junior from Roseville relied on his speed and knowledge to cruise to the championship.

“For most of the season, I have been running out in front by myself,” said Barr, who won the steeplechase at the conference meet by nearly 30 seconds. “I like to be out in the lead right away, but with one lap to go I could feel Aaron Hollingshead right behind me. I had already run a 68-second quarter earlier this year, and I knew I had it in me again.”

Barr seemed more pleased for his school than himself following the victory.

“This is cool for Monmouth,” he said. “They have only had one other All-American in the steeplechase in school history (Steve Hartman in 1992). I just took it hurdle by hurdle.”

While both Monmouth runners entered the meet with the No. 1 ranking, Boma’s race was not as easy to handicap as Barr’s. Running in his final collegiate meet, the senior from Harrisburg knew he had a strong finishing kick but was not as sure as how he and the rest of his competition would perform.

“After finishing third in the nation last year, I think Blake put a great deal of thought into this national meet and put a good deal of pressure on himself to achieve this goal,” said Haynes. “He was able to use his top ranking as a positive, and to be able to produce his best race in the final race of his collegiate career says a lot about him.”

With Jasmin starting in his line of sight in Lane 5, Boma’s goal was to make up part of the stagger early. He did so, according to Haynes, with a solid stretch over the second, third and fourth hurdles and went on to capture the race decisively.

“This has been a great outdoor season for Monmouth and a great weekend for all of us,” said Boma, who was Monmouth’s only All-American last May. “We had a lot more qualifiers this year in different events. It felt good to have more teammates around this weekend.”

He added, “It feels awesome to finally be a national champion. I have had a lot of great advice from the past champion, Derek Toshner, and from both of my coaches, especially Coach Haynes.”

Boma had an opportunity to compete in another final, but Monmouth’s 4x400 relay team – which also included Tyler Rundle, Brad Gross and Kel Bond – fell two seconds shy during Thursday’s qualifying. Haynes reported that Rundle ran a solid lead leg of 47.4, keeping pace with eventual national 400-meter champion Bobby Young.

Unfortunately, Rundle couldn’t match that great effort when it came time to compete individually. He failed to qualify for the 400-meter dash final with his time of 48.60, and he just missed the qualifying mark in the 200-meter dash as well. His time of 21.96 was fourth-hundredths of a second from earning All-American honors.

“A couple things come to mind,” said Haynes, when asked to put the national meet into perspective. “No. 1, it was a fitting end to Blake’s career. The other thing is that now we have some new challenges. This motivated a lot of our guys to get started right away on next season. Even Zach has a sense now of how mentally tough he’s going to have to be. He’s been putting in 80-mile training weeks, and he knows that will have to increase to 85 or 90 miles if he wants to improve his time.”

Barr also figures to want to increase his events. Although Haynes said that he and Barr were “comfortable” with their decision to skip the 1500-meter run at nationals to conserve energy, that will likely not be the game plan in 2006.

“It only took 3:58 to qualify for the final, and Zach can get up in the middle of the night and run that,” said Haynes.

It’s still about 360 days away, but you get the feeling that when Barr wakes up in the middle of the night, he’s already thinking about how to add to Monmouth’s growing number of national championships.

Men's Outdoor Track