April 23, 2007

TRACK & FIELD: Conference Meet Wrap Up

LAST WEEK: The Pacific Lutheran men’s and women’s track teams competed at the Northwest Conference Championships with the women taking sixth and the men finishing seventh.

THIS WEEK: Select team members will travel to Western Oregon to compete at the John Knight Twilight Invitational scheduled for Friday night. With conference in the rear-view mirror, the athletes competing this week vie to improve their marks with the goal of qualifying for the national meet.

CONFERENCE WOES: Ask a Lute faithful how the track team did at the conference meet and their reply would be, “I’ve got good news and bad news.” The bad news was that the men’s team finished seventh and the women’s team took sixth in the eight-team field. The men’s seventh-place finish is the worst in almost 40 years and their total score of 19 points is the lowest point total at the conference meet since 1968, when the meet was scored five places deep. So while things may look dark in Luteville there were some individual performances that make the future look a little brighter.

MEN’S HIGHLIGHTS: The 19 points that the men’s team scored were all picked up by underclassmen. The sophomore duo of Luke Weinbrecht (third) and Danny Hibbard (seventh) both placed in the top eight in the 400-meter hurdles and ran on both relay teams. Junior sprinting ace James Burnett, who was fighting hamstring problems, qualified for the finals in the 100-meter dash for the third straight year, finishing seventh. Freshman javelin thrower Clint Ludlow picked up two points with his seventh-place finish. His throw of 184-7 was a 10-foot improvement over his previous best mark this year and places him 11th on the all-time PLU men’s javelin list.

WOMEN’S HIGHLIGHTS: The women’s team was led by thrower Megan Wochnick and hurdler Faven Araya. The two tallied 33 of the total 71.33 points. Wochnick was the only conference champion for the Lutes as she picked up the hammer title with a toss of 154-5. She also won the hammer title as a freshman in 2004. Wochnick also placed fourth in the discus and eighth in the shot put. Araya had a strong run in both hurdles races, placing second in the 400 hurdles in 1:04.99 and finishing third in the 100 hurdles in a time of 16.07. Araya also ran the third leg on the second-place 400-meter relay team, which clocked 51.01. She was joined on the unit by Lynette Millard, Jeva Morton and Heather O'Farrell, who ran the final leg for injured Amy LeBrun. Freshmen Katie Choate and Karin Hatch both picked up second-place finishes as Hatch had a toss of 131-1 in the javelin throw, and Choate ran 2:19.24 in the 800-meter run. Sophomore Taylor Hacker also picked up a good chunk of points after she finished third in the hammer (127-7) and fourth in the shot put (36-11).

NATIONAL MARKS: Two Lutes have hit provisional marks for the NCAA Division III national meet. Senior Megan Wochnick has a season best toss of 161-5 in the hammer throw. Wochnick is currently ranked ninth in the nation. Freshman Karin Hatch hit the provisional mark last weekend in the javelin with a toss of 131-1. Hatch is currently 13th in the nation. The national meet is scheduled for May 24-26 in Oshkosh, Wis.

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