After a month of road meets, Wesleyan track and field finally came to Middletown on Saturday for its lone home meet of the 2008 season. The Cards did it right, too, racking up 11 first-place finishes as they dominated the field of ten schools participating in the Elmer Swanson Invitational.
“Having a home meet is especially exciting because it means there will be a lot of community support,” said women’s team Co-captain Steph O’Brien ’08. “Parents, friends, and other athletes always come out to watch and you want to perform well for them.”
Both the men and women did exceptionally well, with the women’s team contributing 20 top-six finishers in 11 of the 17 possible individual events. Not to be outdone, the men placed in the top six 22 times on Saturday, including a sweep of the top four spots in the 3000m run, Matt Shea ’08, Tom Akita ’10, Charles Lang ’11 and Dave Tassone ’09 all finished under 10 minutes.
Other individual title winners for the men’s team were Sam Grover ’08 for the triple jump and Charles Foster ’09, who played the one in the Cardinal one-two donkey punch victory he and teammate Matt Katz ’11 put on the 1500m. The men’s 4x800m relay teams performed a similar feat, taking the top two spots.
Although the women placed less track and fielders in the top six, they grabbed twice as many first place finishes as the men’s team. Liz Wheatley ’09, Ravenna Neville ’10, Hannah Hastings ’08, and Hannah Bourne ’11 placed one-two-three-four in their own 3000m, while Lynn Edmonds ’11 and Tameir Holder ’08 finished one-two and two-three in the 200m and 100m dash, respectively.
Sokki Chham ’11 had a remarkable day competing in both running and jumping events. Chham set the Wesleyan indoor long jump record with a 17-5 1/2 leap en route to a first-place finish in that event. Then Chham headed outside and competed in the 100m, 200m, high jump, and triple jump, finishing in the top six in all four events.
The Wesleyan women’s remaining first-place finishers were O’Brien in the 800m, Hannah Overton ’11 in the 400m, Christina Barnett ’11 in the 100m hurdles, and the 4×800 relay team.
Although Saturday’s home meet went well for the Cardinals, their meet the previous weekend at Coast Guard was not as successful. The meet was the first in which the Cardinals competed as teams, and the women placed 7th out of 12 while the men secured the 5th spot out of 11 competing teams.
Both Wesleyan teams were playing without some of their strongest members due to the limited events offered in New London.
“Coast Guard didn’t have a 10k, so some of our good guys ran on Friday at Princeton,” said Brad Litchfield ’09.
Despite finishing in the bottom-half of the field as a team, the Wesleyan women had five first or second place finishes. O’Brien and Wheatley took first and second in the 1500m and Chham placed second in the long jump. Edmonds held down the fort in her two main events, winning the 400m and taking second in the 200m.
The men, missing their long distance runners, won 45 points, which was good enough for fifth place but a bit off the 234.5 posted by the Coast Guard Academy Bears.
“Coast Guard dominated,” Litchfield said.
However, the Cards salvaged the steeplechase and the triple jump as Shea snuffed out the Merchant Marine Academy’s best bid at any event, edging the Mariner’s Robert Edsall by eight seconds. In the triple jump, Grover came up an inch and a half short of the lead, held by Tommie Lark ’11.
The Cardinals are looking forward to their second foray into the team-scoring format as they head to Amherst this Saturday for the annual Little Three meet.
“We finally have almost everyone back from injuries and we’re thrilled to go into Little Three’s next weekend with such a strong group,” O’Brien said. “It’s by far the most solid team we’ve had since I’ve been here in terms of ability as well as team spirit and solidarity.”
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