by Jordanne Perry

The Whitworth men’s and women’s track and field teams competed at the Northwest Scoring Clash (World War 9) meet this past weekend hosted by Spokane Falls Community College where the Pirates took four event victories.

The ninth-annual meet featured 21 schools from Washington competing against programs from Idaho, Oregon and Montana of all three NCAA divisions and NAIA.

The men’s team had two first place finishes from sophomore Andrew Bloom in the javelin and senior Corey Burt in the shot put event.

For the third week in a row, Bloom set a new personal record and took a victory over 30 other competitors.

“I always pray and visualize right before I throw,” Bloom said. “I talk to my coach between each throw for pointers.”

Bloom set a new Whitworth record mark of 219’ 2” breaking the previous 216’ 10” record set in 2011. This season, his throw is currently best in the nation.

“I try not to think so much about the rankings and scores because all that really matters is how I do at conference and nationals,” Bloom said. “The rankings aren’t too important until you get there, but I am happy that I am [setting personal records]”.

In the shot put, Burt finished in first place out of 23 opponents with a mark of 53’ 7.5”. Burt also took second place in the discus with a 46.16 m throw.

Sophomore John-Robert Woolley set a new personal best time of 54.10 with a fifth place finish in the 400-meter hurdles event.

“[John-Robert Woolley] has been really consistent and running close to his lifetime best all year,” senior decathlete Lucas McGill said. “Usually he is one of the fastest guys but this meet was huge so he got to run with better competition and had a really good race.”

The women’s team also had two first place finishes and six top five finishes.

“A lot of people got really close to getting conference qualifying marks, a lot of people came close to season best, a lot of people got season best, and we had some national caliber marks across the board,” senior Katie McKay said.

With a time of 11:11.43, senior Kellyn Roiko posted a first place finish in the women’s 3,000-meter steeplechase.

In the 800-meter event, sophomore Kayla Leland took a first place victory over 35 other competitors and posted a season-best time of 2:11.82.

Six Pirate athletes returned to action  to compete in the NWC Combined Championships. The group of six consists of seniors McGill, Olivia Newman, Ally McConnell, junior Dane Larson, sophomore Kayla Brase and freshman Thomas Harshaw. The Pirates will also host the Whitworth Twilight Invite, beginning on Thursday April 14.