Monmouth track performances heat up at Benedictine Invitational

On Saturday in Lisle, eight Fighting Scots took advantage of the best weather of the season to either move up in the national rankings or, in many cases, post a qualifying mark for the first time this spring as Monmouth College competed at the Benedictine University Invitational.

Coach Roger Haynes not only credited the mild weather conditions, but also said his teams had experienced past success at Benedictine, which was the site of last year’s national meet.

Monmouth’s lead story once again came from a pair of pole vaulters. All-American Jessica White burst onto the outdoor scene in her first action of the spring, clearing a school-record and automatic-qualifying height of 12’5-1/2 to move up to third nationally. By shattering her previous school record of 11’10, White showed she is clearly past an injury that had kept her on the sidelines prior to the meet.

"She’d been sore, and we held her out of some meets," said Haynes. "If she hadn’t finished her workout on Thursday, we were going to hold her out again, but she made it through, and then she looked really solid at the meet."

Peter Sprecher has reached the automatic pole vault height, and his fellow All-American, Jonny Henkins, joined him Saturday, clearing 16’6. Sprecher was one place back at 16’0.

"We had a lot of track alumni there Saturday, and one of them was Roger Well, our Hall of Fame decathlete," said Haynes. "He vaulted 13’7 when he was in college, and he was pretty amazed by the whole process … Jonny was really solid, and he had some decent jumps at 17 feet. This was the type of weekend he needed."

Both White and Henkins earned first place honors, joining eight other Scots who won events. Monmouth’s men were dominant, scoring 231 points to top runner-up Loyola University by 145 points in the 20-team field, while the MC women took second out of 21

teams, trailing first-place Lewis University by just 17.

Alex Stuart won twice for the Scots, throwing the javelin 182’8 and soaring 45’3 in the triple jump. Also finishing first were Dante Daniels in the 100-meter dash (10.71), Luke Reschke in the 400-meter dash (48.81), Clay Staley in the steeplechase (9:37.79), Shannon Turczyn in the 100-meter hurdles (14.70), Jeff Rebholz in the shot put (a personal-best 54’5-1/4), Zach Wilson in the hammer throw (171’7) and Tim Frank in the high jump (6’4).

Among those marks, Daniels, Turczyn, Rebholz and Wilson all moved up in the national rankings, with Rebholz taking over the No. 4 spot in the shot put. Daniels also placed second in the 200-meter dash in 21.47, in the process moving into the top four nationally.

"Dante was right around where we think he needs to be at this point," said Haynes. "His 200 was a really solid race. He’s still got some technical improvements he can make on the curve and on his start, but he is way ahead of where he was last spring."

Of Rebholz and his big throws, Haynes said, "We’ve been waiting for that to happen. It was an ‘about time’ kind of thing. He’s had a lot of big throws in practice, so it was good to see it happen in a meet, and he’s been aggressively working on the discus, too." He placed second in the latter event, with his 154’4 throw coming just 18 inches short of the provisional mark.

Like White, Turczyn has also "experienced discomfort" and missed meets, but Haynes said her provisional time was "indicative of what a solid hurdler she is. She’s very efficient in the air."

Other provisional marks came from Jen Babos (144’4) and Tanesha Hughes (a personal-best 137’4), who placed 2-3 in the discus. Babos added a school record in the hammer with her runner-up throw of 141’2 and placed third in the shot put (40’8-3/4).

"Jen is becoming very consistent, both event to event and throw to throw," said Haynes. "That has been the difficult part for her, but she’s really coming on. Tanesha has made huge improvements in the shot put and discus. It won’t be long before she’s in the 140s all the time."

Both of Monmouth’s men’s relays won, with the 4x100 team of Daniels, Aaron Daverin, Reschke and Tyler Rundle finishing in 41.86, and the 4x400 group of Rundle, Reschke, Brad Gross and Jacob Stott posting a time of 3:19.48.

Also finishing in the top three for the Scots were Kel Bond in the 800-meter run (a personal-best 1:53.47), Ashley Gaul in the 10,000-meter run (48:21.46), Zach Barr and Staley in the 5000-meter run (15:26.71 and a personal-best 15:27.76, respectively), Darin VanNattan in the 10,000-meter run (34:07.63), Ashley Widdop in the 100-meter hurdles (15.60), Brandon Hurckes in the 110-meter hurdles (15.58), Megan McKenna in the long jump (17’8-3/4) and pole vault (a PR of 11’6) and Megan Clennon in the high jump (5’0-1/4).

Brenda Herrera remained in second place in the MWC with her improved times of 12.59 in the 100-meter dash and 25.76 in the 200-meter dash, and Haynes was also impressed with the performance of Stott, who "was very good in the 200 (22.71) and 400 (49.81)."

Also scoring individual points for the Scots were Daverin, Rundle, Gross, Ryan Hardman, Sara Ingersoll, Katie Staab, Brad Begyn, Andrew Kuebrich, Briana Flynn, Sara Ditzler, Kyle Schierer, Lindsay Ditzler, Katey Vaccarello, Tim Meredith, Gloria Lehr, Cassie Jensen, Emmanuel Minter, Dan Higgins, April Campen and Andrea Emery.

"The key to the event for me was the performance of our middle finishers," said Haynes. "A lot of them were pretty exceptional and showed huge improvement."