Wittenberg Track And Field Adds Many Highlights At Capital Last Call

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Mike Echols 

COLUMBUS, Ohio —The Wittenberg Tigers continued a strong indoor season at Capital's Mike Reindl Last Chance Meet on Friday. Top five finishes abounded including the first place showing of Tara Osborne (Oxford, Ohio/Talawanda).

Osborne turned in the day's best finish from a Tiger, taking the top spot in the 400-meter dash.Senior Allison Walker (Columbus, Ohio/Academy) continued her record-breaking ways by upping her own women's weight throw school record once again. She hurled the weight 43 feet five inches to top herself and take second place in the meet. Walker also placed third in the shot put.

The meet was also very successful for Wittenberg's pair of Katies, juniors Katie Shoemaker (Arcanum, Ohio/Franklin Monroe) and Katie McIlvain (East Liverpool, Ohio/East Liverpool). Shoemaker took fourth in the 200-meter dash, and McIlvain took third in the 1000-meter run and fourth in the one-mile run. The women tied it all together with a fourth-place finish in the 4x200-meter relay.

Erik Larkin (Cincinnati, Ohio/Country Day) has had a tremendous indoor season so far and it continued this weekend. His events included the high jump, where he placed fifth, the long jump, in which he fnished third, and the triple jump, where he finished third. Rob Belcher (Covington, Ga./Newton County) finished just behind Larkin in fourth place in the long jump, and took his own third place in the 55-meter dash with a time of 6.62 seconds, just 0.05 seconds off Wittenberg's record. Also performing well was Mike Echols (Springfield, Ohio/North) with a fourth-place showing in the 800-meter run. The men were able to tie their efforts together with a pair of fifth-place relay finishes in the 4x200-meter and 4x400-meter events.

This last chance meet serves as the final tune-up before the North Coast Athletic Conference indoor track and field championships next weekend, hosted by Denison.

Written by: John Strawn