The Observer, April 14, 2006
Volume XXXVIII, Issue 24
Spartan track team dominates competition at first home meet
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In the first ever meet at the track at The Village at 115, the women dominated the competition. The men also came away with the victory, but just barely.
Alex Drollinger was pleased with the men's team's performance and especially his own.
"I was happy [with the performance]," Drollinger said. "I had a personal best in the hammer and in the disc. That's a good day in my book."
Alison Donnelly agreed.
"The fat-man relay probably set a new school record and I beat people in the javelin," Donnelly said. "It was a good day."
Donnelly also won the 5000. She was not alone in her victory either. The women's team racked up 241 points in winning the meet. Second place had just 79. In order to come away with such a large victory, a team has to not only win many events but place other runners high as well, and they did just that. Thirteen athletes won an event, many followed by other Case athletes. In the 5000, after Donnelly, the team took the next two spots as well. In the 1500, the women took the top five spots.
Many of the women said that the level of competition not only explained the large victory but also kept runners from being pushed in their races.
"I think it would be really good for our team if we ran against people in our conference at every meet," Kristin Bowhers said. "The runners in our conference are good competition and that would push our team to do better."
Karyn Wheeler agreed.
"I think the team is ready to face some real competition and live up to all that we can do," Wheeler said.
Esther Erb took her opinion one step further, recommending change.
"We really need to move our home meet to another weekend because we should have been somewhere where we would have actually run decent times instead of just winning because there was nobody in our events," Erb said. "All the rest of the teams in our conference go to at least one Division I meet during their indoor and outdoor seasons, and we wonder why we do so poorly at conference."
Elizabeth Ehrke was not upset about the quality of the throwing competition.
"There was strong competition in the throwing events with several unattached throwers," Ehrke said.
Against similar competition, the men's team won almost as many events as the women but was unable to pull away by as large a margin. The men won the meet by just five points over Notre Dame College. While they won 10 events, the sprint team struggled in the individual events, not coming away with any victories.
Nick Young agreed with the women's analysis of the level of competition.
"There's always going to be that struggle to push yourself when you're in a race against better schools," Young said. "We could surely lay down better times than we are now with better competition."
Both the men and the women also felt like the weather contributed to the times put down.
"I think the chilly weather made the meet very difficult," Bowhers said. "In the front stretch, it was shear wind fighting against you, and that made it very difficult to finish strong. It was also so cold I couldn't keep my muscles loose."
Drollinger also said the weather inhibited the times but was pleased with how the runners fought through it.
"It really slowed the sprints, which is understandable," Drollinger said. "Everyone pushed through it though, which was good to see."
This week the team will be up against much better competition and the weather is supposed to be much nicer. They are competing in the All-Ohio meet at Ohio Wesleyan University.
Ryan Breon is looking for the team to perform well, especially the throwers.
"I expect everyone to run their PR's against the best in Ohio," Breon said. "Look out for Paul Hannen, Alex Drollinger, and Brandon Jeffries in the field events. Each should do very well."
