Manoach Lamarre
GRANVILLE, Ohio — The Wittenberg men's and women's indoor track and field teams both finished toward the middle of the pack at the 2007 North Coast Athletic Conference Indoor Championships at Denison. But while the teams didn't necessarily stand out from the crowd, junior Nicole Bailey (Cincinnati, Ohio/Summit Country Day) certainly did.
Bailey captured NCAC Indoor Sprints/Hurdles Athlete of the Year honors for her record-setting performance at the two-day meet. She started off with a second-place finish in the triple jump Friday and added a fourth in the long jump Saturday. But it was on the track where she really shined.
She set a school record and earned provisional qualification to the NCAA Division III Championships with a first-place time of 7.30 in the 55 meters. The mark, .04 faster than her time in Friday's prelims, beat her previous school record, set two years ago, by a scant .01. Bailey went on to add a third-place finish in the 200 meters and ran a leg of the 4x200 meter relay that claimed fourth place.
In all, Bailey scored 29 team points by herself, and she was a contributor to the five points the Tigers collected in the aforementioned relay. Top-three finishes mean All-NCAC awards for individual athletes, meaning that Bailey added three more such honors.
The Tigers scored a total of 58 team points, just two shy of fourth-place Denison. Sophomore Katie Shoemaker (Arcanum, Ohio/Franklin-Monroe) was the other big individual point-scorer as she placed fourth in the 200 meters and claimed All-NCAC honors with a second-place in the 400 meters. In addition, Shoemaker ran the anchor leg on the 4x200 meter relay.
Rounding things out, junior Allison Walker (Columbus, Ohio/Academy)contributed a second-place finish in the shot put. That was also good for all-conference recognition.
The Tiger men scored 39 points in the meet to finish seventh. The lone All-NCAC honoree for that squad was sophomore Manoach Lamarre (Miami, Fla./Bellen Jesuit), who claimed third place in the 55 meters. He went on to add an eighth-place finish in the 200 meters.
The next highest scorer for the Tigers was sophomore Gabe Savage (Lewisburg, Ohio/Tri-County North), who placed fourth in the mile. In addition, freshman Curt Weidner (Harrison, Ohio/Harrison) placed fifth in the 55 hurdles, followed by freshman Tim Uher (Granville, Ohio/Pickerington Central) in sixth, and sophomore Erik Larkin (Cincinnati, Ohio/Country Day) captured fifth in the high jump and fourth in the triple jump.