Bowling Green’s men’s and women’s track and field teams are entering their final weeks of competition. When the women’s team finishes and starts to look forward to next season, the men will close the book on their careers as athletes at BG.
The BG women competed at the Kansas relays on Thursday and Friday, but many of the event finals scheduled for Saturday were canceled after a lightning strike and a rain delay.
“We competed quite well and it was a good experience to go out there with some other high-caliber competition from around the country and certainly hold our own,” coach Scott Sehmann said. “I am extremely happy with where we’re at with the running part of our program at the moment and I think our future is just going to get brighter and brighter.”
Bowling Green’s sprint medley team of Christine Thompson, Tamika Dixon, JoVone Houpe and Alicia Taylor won first place with a time of 4:01.70. The BG team beat Kansas and other high-caliber track programs from the Midwest. Thompson, a senior, ran the anchor leg for the BG team.
“These girls did a great job to get me the lead,” Thompson said. “Being the distance leg in this relay I just wanted to come out and represent to get the win.”
Second-place finishers for the Falcons included juniors Mary Willems and Briana Killian. Willems’s 50.44 meters in the hammer throw was a career best. Killian’s time in the 800-meter run was 2:19.67. Thompson was third in the 1500-meter run with a time of 4:45.64. Junior Joy Echler placed third in the 3000-meter steeplechase with a time of 11:13.54.
Sophomore Kerri McClung placed fourth in the shot put with a throw of 14.08 meters, while senior Lori Williams placed fourth in the hammer throw with a mark of 50.33 meters. Sophomore Amber Culp placed sixth in the steeplechase with a time of 11:25.69 and senior Janean Johnson placed seventh in the hammer throw with a career best mark of 46.82 meters.
The men’s team competed at the Western Michigan Quadrangular meet, where it finished third with 105.50 points, behind Western Michigan and Central Michigan but ahead of Michigan State.
The Falcons finished second in two events and third in five events. Junior pole vaulter Drew Downey finished second with a vault of 4.57 meters. The other second place came from BG’s 4×100 meter relay squad with a time of 41.38. BG was edged out by the squad from Western Michigan, which finished in 41.30. Freshman Durond Clark placed third in the 100-meter dash and the 200-meter dash with times of 11.29 and 22.15.
Bowling Green’s 4×400 meter relay finished third with a time of 3:15.13. The 4×400 team was also edged out by Western Michigan by only .02 seconds. Freshman Dean Coticchia added another top three finish to his list of accolades this season in the high jump with a mark of 1.98 meters. Senior Pat Kania placed third in the hammer throw with a distance of 49.56 meters.
The BG harriers placed fifth in five events at the meet and placed sixth in three events. Sophomore Dustin Conkright was fifth in the pole vault with a vault of 4.27 meters, while junior high jumper Bryan Gardner placed fifth in his event with a jump of 1.93 meters. Sophomore Troy Stiles ran to a fifth-place finish in the 3000-meter steeplechase with a time of 9:42.83. Matt Gibbs and sophomore Eric Brandle placed fifth and sixth in the 400 meter hurdles with times of 59.85 and 1:04.65. Senior Eric Peterson and Gardner placed fifth and sixth in the long jump with marks of 6.40 meters and 6.23 meters. Junior Josh Cook placed sixth in the 800-meter run with a time of 1:54.59.
The next meet for both the men and women is the Hillsdale Relays in Hillsdale, Mich., on Thursday. BG throwers McClung and Willems will represent BG in the in the shot put, discus, and hammer throw at the Penn Relays in Philadelphia.
