by Meghan Dellinger
The Whitworth men’s track and field team won their third straight victory at the 2012 NWC Championships on April 20 and 21, scoring 270 points total, making a new Whitworth record. The Pirate women finished the meet in fourth place, with George Fox University winning for the second year in a row.
Head coach Toby Schwarz said the meet was overall great, with beautiful weather on both days of competition.
“For the guys, we had nine conference champions. [They] pretty much dominated,” Schwarz said. “The girls’ team has lots of young [athletes] that performed very well, [and] people scored points that weren’t supposed to. We had really beautiful weather. People could just perform as opposed to the weather directing anything.”
The Pirates were 138 points ahead of runner-up Willamette University, who scored a total of 132 points.
Schwarz was voted the NWC Men’s Coach of the Year for the third year in a row, the sixth time in his career. Junior Carter Comito was voted as the NWC Men’s Field Athlete of the Year.
Comito said winning the award was the most exciting part of the meet for him.
“It was nice to be Field Athlete of the meet,” he said. “I’ve never had that before so it felt good.”
Comito won the discus the first day of the meet, with a throw of 186-9. The throw also broke his own NWC Championship meet record from last year, which was 178-5. Comito then went on to win the shot put on the next day, with a throw of 52-8.25.
Junior Luke Mathews won the long jump with a distance of 22-2.5 on the first day, and placed sixth in the triple jump on the second day, with a distance of 43-8.5. He placed just behind junior Frank Lima and junior Shannon Winant, who placed fourth and fifth, respectively.
Winant finished third in the long jump, reaching a distance of 21-8.75. He jumped 43-11.75 in the triple jump, which would earn him fifth.
Lima won the high jump on the first day, clearing a height of 6-8, and reached a distance of 44-2.5 in the triple jump on the second day.
Senior Tyler Dudley won second place in the 3000m steeplechase on Friday, with a time of 9:23.34. On the next day, he took third in the 5000m steeplechase with a time of 15:30.82.
Sophomore Casey Monahan won the 110m hurdles on Saturday, sprinting to a time of 15.42. His teammate, sophomore Jonathan Hoff, finished in second with a time of 15.45.
Junior Steven Acosta finished second in both the 800m and 1500m races, with times of 1:56.75 and 3:57.60, respectively. In both races, he was less than a second behind the first place finishers.
Freshman Chase Wright won the javelin on the first day, with a throw of 189-7. Freshman Matthew Landon won the 100m dash on Saturday with a time of 11.14. He finished second in the 200m dash with a time of 22.44.
The men’s 4x100m relay won for the second year in a row, with Landon, sophomore Tyler Guinn and freshmen Trent Alsin and Wesley Sitser running the race in a time of 42.29.
Junior Chibron Tomeo won the pole vault on Saturday, clearing 14-11.25, and finished fourth in the 100m dash with a time of 11.31.
Freshman Joseph Green finished third in the pole vault, clearing the same distance as Tomeo; however, the final placings were based on the number of misses.
Green said the meet atmosphere was ecstatic, yet relaxed.
“It was a really good weekend,” he said. “Just a lot of good things happened.”
Sophomore Elke Neuenschwander finished in third place for the discus, with a throw of 125-6, while junior Jenae Martin finished the event in fifth place with her throw of 121-2.
Freshman Christina Dobbins cleared 5-1 in the high jump, placing third. She finished fifth in the 110m hurdles with a time of 16.03, and finished in eighth in the 400m hurdles with a time of 1:09.50.
Junior Rebekah Daniels took second place in the hammer throw on Saturday, with a throw of 147-11, and finished in fourth for the shot put with a throw of 36-0.
Sophomore Jheri Gates won the high jump on Saturday, clearing 5-5 to win by two inches.
Gates said the meet itself was exciting for the team.
“We had a lot of exciting performances by everyone on the team,” she said. “It was really fun to cheer on everyone [and] to be a part of.”
The Whitworth track and field team will compete next in the Pelluer Invitational in Cheney, Wash., on April 27.
Contact Meghan Dellinger at mdellinger15@my.whitworth.edu.