By: Burke De Boer Sports Editor
The conference’s best came to Monmouth for the GNAC Outdoor Track and Field Championship.
The two days of competition on May 12 and 13 featured many Wolves wins, and a conference record was broken.
Senior Wesley Gray set a conference record in the triple jump competition, when he hopped, stepped and jumped to a distance of 15.5 meters, or 50’10.25”. No one had cleared 50 feet in conference history, and a new tape had to be fetched from the storage area to record the distance.
The event win earned the men’s team 10 points and replaced a 13-year-old conference record.
Senior Aaron Whitaker won his 400-meter race, crossing the finish line in 47.59 seconds, breaking his own school record time of 47.96 seconds that he had set earlier this year.
Junior David Ribich earned 20 points for the men’s team on his own, winning two events.
Ribich won the men’s 800-meter with a time of 1:52.71. He was soon followed by senior Michael Chin, whose 1:54.94 finish earned him fourth place.
Ribich also claimed the title for the 1500-meter race, finishing in 3:47.37. Sophomore Dustin Nading came in second in this event, with a time of 3:47.63, while junior Thomas Normandeau completed the race in 3:58.04 for eighth place to grab the final available point. Wolves men picked up 19 points from the 1500-meter, alone.
Nading also scored a fifth place finish in the 5000-meter, with a time of 15:34.79.
First-year student Alani Troutman won the long jump contest, leaping to a distance of 7.08 meters, or 23’2.75”. The first conference championship of Troutman’s career, it speaks to a promising future for the Western Oregon competitor.
The men’s team picked up another ten points when it won the 4×100-meter relay. Seniors Gray, Devonte Woods and Whitaker and junior Codi Blodgett made up the victory team. They finished the event in 41.62 seconds.
In the sprints, junior Cody Warner took second in the 200-meter with a time of 22.33. Blodgett finished behind him, taking fifth place in 22.81 seconds. Blodgett also claimed fifth in the 100-meter with a time of 11.15.
The women’s throwing team did well, as senior Rachael Huffman earned a second place distance in the discus, with a throw of 42.92 meters, or 140’10”. First-year student Halie Korff came in eighth in the contest, with a throw of 38.67 meters, or 124’8.25”. First-year Mariah Gronbach came in 10th with a 38-meter throw, or 124’8.25”.
Huffman claimed a fourth place finish in the shot put, throwing it a distance of 13.16, or 43’2.5,” which advances her place in the school record book from fourth to fifth.
Korff also placed eighth in the javelin, with a throw of 41.01 meters, or 134’6.75”.
The women’s team picked up a total of 12 points on the 800-meter race, with fourth, fifth and sixth place finishers. Junior Megan Rose came in fourth place with a time of 2:11.65. Junior Suzanne Van De Grift placed fifth with a time of 2:12.53 and sophomore Olivia Woods rounded out the Wolves finishers with a sixth-place time of 2:13.14.
The men’s team amassed a total of 107 points, finishing fourth overall in the two days of competition. The women’s team picked up 36 points to finish ninth out of the 10 teams. Alaska Anchorage took the conference championships, both men’s and women’s teams.
The NCAA Division II Outdoor National Championship will be held in Bradenton, Florida May 25 through 27. Multiple Wolves have posted qualifying and provisional marks over the season and now await the announcement of official selections.
Contact the author at journalsports@wou.edu
