Kasey Fielder
Senior Sports Writer
The College of Wooster track and field team competed in the Bob Shannon Invitational at Denison University on Saturday, where a school record was broken for the third time out of four meets this winter.
Paris Nahas ’16 broke Stephanie McShane ’13’s previous standard of 8.34 seconds in the 60 meter dash. Nahas sprinted to the finish line in 8.30 seconds which was 0.60 seconds faster than her prelim race. She even excelled in the 200-meter race, running an impressive second-place time of 27.44 seconds. Edith Anderson ’14 complemented Nahas with a fourth-place run of 27.60. Both students, along with sprinters Tricia Hall ’14 and Kara Johnson ’14 were members of the winning 4×200-meter relay team that coasted to the finish line in a short time of 1:52:01.
The 60-meter hurdles was yet another event of the day that consisted of multiple scorers for the Fighting Scots. Amy French ’14 and Taryn Szalay ’17 came in sixth (9.68) and seventh (9.84), respectively. Also scoring on the track were Ashley Huddson ’15 in the 400-meter (1:04.62), Lauren Buyan ’15 in the 800 (2:30.30), and Emily Reid ’17 in the 5000-meter (19:58.47).
In the field, French was the runner-up in the triple jump (32 feet, 5.75 inches), Jocelyn Lion ’15 notched third-place in the pole vault (9 feet, 0.25 inches) and seventh in the long jump (15 feet, 5 inches). Katie Cameron ’17 took fifth place in the long jump (15 feet, 11 inches).
On the men’s side, David Brew ’14 was the highlight of the meet as he emerged the winner out of a field of 32 competitors in the 800-meter (1:58.52) and Morgan Clark ’14 also earned first-place points for the team in the 5000-meter (15:59.30). Matt Margida ’16 earned fourth-place out of 26 throwers in the shot put (48 feet, 2.75 inches), while Roy Hadfield ’17 also scored in the 800 via a sixth-place run (2:02.43).
Wooster was without a couple of its top contributors, but still competed well among a group of eight highly-competitive Ohio schools, as the women’s team placed fifth and the men sixth.
On Sunday, Feb. 9, Hilary Coady ’16 competed at the All-Ohio Div. III Track & Field Championships in Granville, Ohio where she placed 10th. Coady competed with outstanding efforts in the indoor women’s pentathlon despite an unfortunate misstep that spoiled what would have likely been an overall second place earning. The first of five events was the 60-meter hurdles, perhaps Coady’s strongest event, but she clipped the final hurdle and fell, which caused her to cross the finish line in 10th place in 14.61.
Coady went on to finish third, third, fifth and first in the next four events. Had she placed near the top in the hurdles, her overall point total would have been in second-place range. Instead, she scored 2,281 points, nonetheless impressive for the Fighting Scots sophomore.
The second and third events of the competition were the high jump and shot put. Coady placed third in both with a jump of 4 feet, 11 inches and a shot put of 27 feet, 8.75 inches. She then took fifth in the long jump (15 feet, 2 inches), and capped off the pentathlon by winning the 800-meter in 2:31.50, which was more than four seconds quicker than her nearest opponent.
A select few of Wooster’s top track and field athletes will continue to compete in the All-Ohio Championships next Saturday in Westerville, Ohio.