Wheaton women win it all

This past weekend, the 2017 CCIW Indoor Track & Field Championships marked the end of the indoor season for the Wheaton men’s and women’s track and field teams. The women’s team placed first and the men took fourth. Individually, several Thunder runners placed in the top tier of their events. Head coach Scott Bradley and the rest of the Thunder coaching staff were named the CCIW Coaching Staff of the Year.
The women’s track team took first place at the CCIW Championships for the first time with a score of 167 points. The Thunder women’s track team started off the weekend on a strong note with junior Nicole Kitchen placing first in the pentathlon with 3,080 points, breaking the previous school record of 3,002 in an impressive fashion. Junior Makenna Sanders also competed in the pentathlon, placing fifth. Sophomore Aryn Embretson, Wheaton’s second conference champion of the day, placed first in the 5,000 meter run, posting a time of 18:32:82.
“This indoor season has definitely been the best one I’ve been a part of in my time here at Wheaton,” commented captain Tabitha Evans, “Just from a numbers standpoint, we had at least seven school records broken, five conference champions and the girls won the indoor CCIW championship.”
The Thunder women’s distance medley relay team, comprised of seniors Jacqueline Smith, Sarah Frey and sophomores Rebecca Marcotte and Abby Grace McGee, finished out Friday’s events and claimed second placed. The Thunder continued their dominating performance on Saturday when the 4×400 meter relay team, made up of seniors Tabitha Evans and Rachel Thomson, sophomore Natasha Brown and freshman Marissa Heath, took first place with a time of 3:58:49. Thomson took second in the 800 meter run, while Evans continued on to take third place in the triple jump, breaking the previous school record.
In the high jump, sophomore Katie Lindquist posted a height of 1.61 meters to take second place. Junior Ellie Hawthorne placed second in the 3,000 meter run with Embretson taking third. Hawthorne also finished second in the one mile run. Promising freshman Favor Ezewuzie placed second in the 60 meter hurdles, with McGee taking third right behind her.
The Thunder men also experienced a successful weekend, taking fourth in the championships. Senior Tommy Cole won first place in the 60 meter hurdles with a meet record time of 8.30 seconds. He also finished fourth in the 200 meter dash. Junior Collin Gray took first in the high jump, while Junior Sola Olateju secured third in the triple jump. Sophomore Leif Van Grinsven finished second in the heptathlon, less than fifty points behind North Park’s Rasmus Elfgaard.
Freshman Adam Terrini placed third in the 400 meter dash and ran on the 4×400 meter relay team alongside Cole, fellow freshman Logan Pinkerton and senior Sam Bertram to take second. The men’s distance medley relay team, made up of senior Scott Wurtz, senior Chris Lee, junior Hudson Thomas and freshman David Dischinger, took third place.
Even with their success, the men were a bit overshadowed by the incredible performances of the women’s team. After all, it’s quite difficult to compete with Wheaton’s first ever women’s indoor CCIW championship — setting up the team for a promising spring outdoor season.