February 4, 2006 SYCAMORES RETURN FROM SUCCESSFUL HOOSIER RELAY MEET Day
One Results BLOOMINGTON, Ind. –The Indiana State track and field teams secured first-place in three events and second in two others in a successful showing at the Hoosier Relays on Friday and Saturday. Individual winners for the Sycamores included Jason Carruthers (weight throw), Yolanda Wright (triple jump) and the team of Julia Costello, Karla Negron, Jillian Yorn and Margaret Reyling in the 4x800-meter relay. “This competition was really, really tough,” women’s head coach John Gartland said. “We had close to 30 schools and over 1,000 athletes that we were up against and the team showed a lot of progress towards competing in conference.” Wright’s leap of 40’-7.75” was first in the preliminaries on Friday and the senior’s jump of 40’2.75” in the finals would equal her pre-lim outcome for first-place in the competition. The 4x800-meter team ran to a 9:37.26 “surprise win” according to Coach Gartland over teams from Vanderbilt, Middle Tennessee State and Western Kentucky. Heather Stembridge ran a sub-ten-minute 3,000-meters and posted a team-best time of 9:59.35 in the third-place finish. Freshman Hannah Weide also ran a team-best 2:16.48 in the 800-meter run preliminaries and finished eighth in the finals on Saturday. Dani Prince posted another season-best time for the Sycamores in the 5,000-meter run, crossing the line in sixth place with a time of 17:55.98. Janae Bridges and Samantha McClendon were one of two sets of teammates to qualify for the long jump finals on Saturday and finished sixth and ninth, respectively. Bridges distance of 18’-7.25” was her best of the year and best for the team at this point in the season. Santia Spight also had a noteworthy meet in the jumps with a second-place finish in the high jump with a height of 5’-6”. Melissa Ullenbruch gave Sycamore fans more reason to look forward to the outdoor season with a fourth-place finish in the pole vault invitational final with a height of 12’-1.50”. The senior will appear with ISU during the outdoor season and competed in the Hoosier Relay meet unattached. On the men’s side, Jason Carruthers’ throw of 66’-5” in the 35 lb. weight throw bested conference leader Mark Milleville (SIU) for first place and an NCAA provision mark. Drew Traub also placed high for ISU throwers with a second-place finish in the shot put with a distance of 58’-1.75” for tops among collegiate throwers. John Nay’s 15:02.02 finish in the 5,000-meter run was tops among Sycamore runners this season and helped the junior to a second-place finish. Kyle Walsh improved on his team’s best time with a fifth-place 4:11.33 finish in the mile run invitational event on Friday. ISU hurdlers were headlined by Sycamore assistant coach Aubrey Herring’s second-place 7.79 finish in the 60-meter hurdle finals on Saturday. Nigel Bigbee also qualified for the finals and equaled his 8.23 time in the preliminaries for a sixth-place finish. Freshman Curt Sunderland had his streak of consecutive wins in the high jump come to an end with an eight-place finishing jump of 6’-5.5” on a sore leg. The men’s 4x400-meter relay team showed no sign of injuries when the team crossed the finish line in sixth, besting the season-best time by almost five seconds. The teams will next travel to Ames, Iowa to participate in the Iowa State Invitational. Men’s head coach John McNichols noted that the invitational will be one of the most important meets in determining conference seedings. The two-day event will begin with the preliminaries on Friday, February 10 and conclude with finals being run on Saturday, February 11 with races beginning at 9:45 a.m.
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