Track and Field Recap

The men’s track team struggled early on as they finished sixth of seven teams at the WashU Mini Meet. However, they bounced back as they finished their next three meets in fourth place of nine teams, fifth place of ten teams and seventh out of 29, respectively.
One of the most notable athletes of the season is senior Tommy Cole, who had numerous top finishes in sprints and hurdles. Cole obtained the 12th fastest 110-meter hurdles in Division III, with a time of 15.26 seconds. Cole also had a first place finish in each of the outdoor track meets this season, and was able to break a school record. Junior Sola Olateju also put together an impressive season in sprints and jumps. Olateju had four top four or better finishes this season and was a key player in gaining points for the Thunder. Junior Colin Gray, who is a record holding jumper for the Wheaton Thunder, also had a successful season as he had four top five finishes. Other notable feats of this season are the multiple broken school records: Olateju broke the record for the triple jump, and sophomore Leif Van Grinsven broke the heptathlon record.
        The women’s track and field team had an impressive season, finishing in the top three of each of their four meets, including a first place finish against 27 schools at their recent meet at Benedictine University. A notable team for this year was the 4×100-meter team that was only .01 seconds away from beating the school record during the first meet. Senior Jordan Tuin has had multiple top five finishes in long distance races. Freshman Favor Ezewuzie has also had a promising season as she has four top three finishes, some of which have come from being on the 4×100-meter relay team. In addition, they broke many school records: freshman Marissa Heath broke the 200-meter record, the 1,600-meter relay team broke a record and junior Nicole Kitchen broke the record for the pentathlon.
As senior Allison Colins reflected on this past season she said, “I think that our team this year has a good balance of veteran leaders and young talent. We have a number of athletes who are in contention to compete at the National Championships at the end of May and coming off a conference win during our indoor season we are hoping to carry that momentum through and finish off this season well!”
The men and women will do all they can to keep their momentum and try and gain more success as they look to the post-season quickly approaching in the next few weeks.