Oberlin, Ohio- Two Wittenberg University athletes made the trip up to Oberlin College over the weekend for the first scoring events of the 2019 NCAC Outdoor Track & Field Championships, the men's decathlon and the women's heptathlon.
In the men's decathlon, Wittenberg sophomore Zach Guyer finished ninth out of 10 competitors in the two-day event with a total score of 4,877 points. Despite not scoring any team points for the Tigers in the event, Guyer still found success over the two days of competition by finishing in the top-5 in five of the 10 events contested, led by placing second in the 110-meter hurdles with a time of 16.05 seconds. He also finished third overall in the shot put event with a heave of 10.31 meters, placed fourth by himself in the javelin with a toss of 42.48 meters and finished as part of a four-way tie for fourth in the high jump after clearing 1.70 meters. In addition, he placed right in the middle of the pack in the 100-meter dash in fifth-place with a time of 11.68 seconds.
On the women's side, freshman Stevie Plikerd earned All-NCAC honors in the heptathlon event after finishing third out of eight total competitors with a final tally of 3,737 total points over the course of the seven total events contested over the past two days. Among the seven total events held within the heptathlon, Plikerd posted top-three finishes in four of them, highlighted by a pair of second-place showings in the 200-meter dash (27.53 seconds) and the long jump with a leap of 4.94 meters. She also finished third overall in both the high jump and shot put competitions with marks of 1.46 meters in the high jump and 9.63 meters in the shot put. She also finished fifth overall in the javelin throw with a toss of 25.49 meters, before closing out the weekend sixth-place finishes in both the 100-meter dash and 800-meter runs with times of 17.64 seconds and 2:44.14, respectively. With Plikerd's third-place showing, the Wittenberg Women will now enter next weekend's NCAC Championships with six points already accounted for in their team tally.
Both Wittenberg squads will now head to Kenyon College this weekend, May 3-4, for the 2019 NCAC Outdoor Track & Field Championships.