In their final tune-up before the conference meet, The Thunder track teams had record-breaking weekends in their meets against rival North Central on Saturday. Freshman Favor Ezewuzie had a day to remember, as she broke the school record for the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 9.18 and tied the school record in the long jump en route to being named the CCIW women’s track athlete of the week. Coming off a week in which he was named CCIW men’s track athlete of the week and broke the school record for the triple jump, Junior Sola Olateju had another strong performance, as his jump of 46 feet two inches was good for second. Junior Collin Gray won the high jump with a leap of 1.98 meters, providing Wheaton with its only first place finish at the event. Their strong performances were not enough to lift their teams to victory, however, as the women took third and the men finished fourth overall.
Head Coach Scott Bradley described this meet as a “practice meet,” a final preparation for the CCIW meet on Friday.
Due to the nature of the sport (no record is kept in terms of wins or losses), the measure of a track team’s season tends to be the place they take in the conference meet. “The way you’re measured all comes down to a one or two day meet …” said Bradley. “I think we did what we needed to do and set ourselves up well for the coming week.”
While the women are expected to compete for the top spot in the conference, winning will be no easy task, as they will have to get through Illinois Wesleyan, the defending national champs, to win the conference crown. Although the men are not expected to do quite as well, hope springs eternal for the upcoming outdoor season. “We’ve traditionally been a very outdoor-focused team,” said Bradley, “and so it’s very normal for us to improve more than any other team in our conference from indoors to outdoors.”
The Thunder wrap up their indoor season as they head down to Bloomington to compete in the CCIW championship meet on Friday and Saturday.