Monmouth to host MWC track meet

Release Date: May 11, 2005

MONMOUTH, Ill. — The Midwest Conference Outdoor Track and Field Championships, which will be hosted by Monmouth College on Friday and Saturday, offer two main plots – which men’s and women’s programs will emerge as team champions. But within the main stories are sub-plots even more numerous than the 38 events which will be contested.

Can this performer break a meet record? Can that one qualify for the national meet? Will another defend their title?

On the men’s side, a handful of performers have positioned themselves well to win again, including three who are currently ranked No. 1 in an event they’ll be defending. That group includes Blake Boma of Monmouth in the 400-meter hurdles, Colin McKean of St. Norbert in the 800-meter run and Zach Barr of Monmouth in the steeplechase. In fact, all three are going for their third straight titles, having also won in 2003. Barr, who owns the nation’s best time in the steeplechase, is also gunning for a three-peat in the 1500-meter run.

A changing of the guard is taking place on the women’s side, as all five athletes who won Most Outstanding Performer honors at last year’s meet have graduated. Together, that quintet won 12 of the 17 individual events in 2004. Only discus thrower Erin Courtney of Ripon and triple jumper Amy Horneck of Monmouth will be defending titles.

Among many exciting matchups, Monmouth coach Roger Haynes feels both 1500-meter run races offer the potential to be truly outstanding.

“The men’s 1500 should be fantastic,” he said. “All the men’s distance races should be very good, but in the 1500 there’ll be (Monmouth’s) Zach and Anthony (Welty) and Kel (Bond), as well as McKean and Grinnell’s Mitch Herz. In the women’s race, there are six kids under 5:00 on the year, including Erin Kelley of Carroll, (Monmouth’s) Tiffanie (York) and Coleen Detjens of Lawrence.”

The 1500-meter finals, scheduled for 2 p.m. on Friday, are the first running events of the meet. Haynes also feels that the men’s 10,000-meter run and the women’s 200-meter dash could be special.

The latter race features MC’s Brenda Herrera and Kila Cox, as well as Ripon’s Heidi Heberlein and Latesha Carter. Heberlein is part of a Ripon 4x400 team that has its sights set on eclipsing the MWC record, and another woman with a chance to break a meet mark is Beloit javelin thrower Megan Maure.

Besides Herrera and Cox, another Monmouth woman with a great chance to post individual championships is Christina Reiner. She won the pole vault, high jump and long jump at the conference indoor meet, and she added runner-up finishes in the triple jump and 55-meter dash. She’ll compete in four individual events this weekend.

Based on their top times of the season, Monmouth men who could eclipse MWC meet records are Boma, Barr and Tyler Rundle in the 200-meter dash. Rundle is within a hundredth of a second of the 21.58 time turned in by the Scots’ Keenan King in 2003, while Boma will be gunning to break the 1993 record of Monmouth’s Jason Devino.

To return to the major storyline of the meet, there’s a better than average chance that the home crowd will leave happy Saturday. Monmouth’s men have won eight of the last 10 conference outdoor meets, while the women have captured seven of the last nine. In the last 10 seasons, Monmouth has recorded a championship sweep six times.

The men, who have won the past four outdoor meets, definitely flexed their muscles at the indoor meet in March, scoring a staggering 276.5 points, more than three times the total of their closest competitor.

“Obviously, it’s a somewhat rare opportunity to host the meet,” said Haynes. “We hope that the advantages of having a lot of friends and family on hand will outweigh some of the negatives, like the distractions of graduation weekend and the closeness that we’ll lose by not all staying in the same hotel.”

The women’s competition figures to be quite close. Monmouth did win the indoor meet by nearly 100 points, but outdoor competition features more throwing and distance running events, and neither is a strong area for the Scots.

“We have a bit of a margin for error, but not a great deal,” said Haynes, who listed Ripon, Carroll and St. Norbert as the chief competitors. “In a close meet like this, one girl from one school not even competing for the team title can change things dramatically.”