by Kevin Byrne
The men and women’s track and field teams finished their indoor seasons at Illinois College in Jacksonville, Ill. last Saturday. The event was the Indoor Midwest Conference Championships, and both squads were looking to finish the season on a good note while also getting their outdoor season off to a good start. At the end of the day, the men’s team had finished third; the women fifth.
For the men’s team, it was the fourth consecutive time they had placed third place. However, the finish was not of great importance for head coach Will Freeman, as the team has more important meets down the road.
“I was pleased,” said Freeman. “We are totally focused on outdoors and our training indoors reflected that. For instance, we did not run intervals on the indoor track due to potential injuries to legs. We pay a bit of a price for that, but it keeps us healthy outdoors. There were some areas that we could have scored better, but all-in-all it was a solid performance.”
Mitch Herz ‘05 led to way for the Pioneers in Jacksonville, running to a second-place finish in the 800 meter run (1:55.66) and a fifth-place showing in the 1 mile run (4:26.03). He, along with Kyle Perry ‘08, Patrick Laine ‘08 and Desire Takawiram ‘06, claimed a 2005 MWC Indoor Championship in the men’s 1,600-sprint medley.
“Overall, I was pleased with my times,” said Herz. “I ran well in the every event except the mile, coming away with a career personal best in the open 800. Although I didn’t achieve my goal of qualifying for the national meet in that event, the team points are much more important at the conference meet. Things never go quite as expected at the conference meet, but the team recovered well from bad events and pulled a couple surprises in events we weren’t supposed to score well in. The team really pulled together during the meet, which is great as an athlete.”
Meanwhile, the women’s team finished one spot lower than they had the year before, but performed better overall.
“I was pleased with our team’s success this weekend,” said women’s head coach Evelyn Freeman. “We finished fifth this year but scored 19 points more than we did last year at fourth place. We are a more well-rounded team, although we do have a few holes in some field events, but we’re working on that.”
The women also had a successful distance medley, run by Meredith Groves ‘08, Kelsey Alford-Jones ‘05, Laura Zdunek ‘07 and Sarah Spencer ‘08, as they claimed the 2005 MWC Indoor Championship in the women’s medley with a winning time of 13:00.58. Groves also notched a second-place finish in the 5000-meter race (19:14.39) and finished fourth in the 3,000-meter race (11:11.14).
“We had varying personal goals and met many of them,” said Groves. “We put forth our best efforts, ran with our hearts, formed stronger team bonds, and had fun. I view the indoor season as a period of preparation for the outdoor season, so I am thrilled with the progress we already made.”
Both teams will now prepare for the spring break trip to Gainesville, Fla. This will be a time for preparation, team bonding, and a little competition to prepare for the outdoor season.
“Although we will compete in two meets and should get some good early season marks,” said Will Freeman, “we are really there to take advantage of good weather and great facilities. It is a big teaching period for our skill events. The team and the coaches work hard and a lot is accomplished. It also helps to help solidify the team dynamic.”
Although Grinnell consistently finishes in the top half of the conference in indoor and outdoor track, Monmouth is the team to beat. Not only have the Scots dominated track in the last decade, they also swept the Indoor MWCs for the fourth straight year last weekend. Recent history also suggests that Monmouth has the edge in the upcoming Outdoor season as well: in the last ten years in men’s and women’s track, the Indoor champ has wound up winning the Outdoor MWCs 17 times out of 20.
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