January 14, 2006 TRACK AND FIELD SPLIT RESULT AT ILLINOIS STATE TERRE HAUTE, Ind. – The Indiana State track and field teams split results with Illinois State on Saturday with the women coming out in front (76-67) while the men, struggling with injuries, couldn’t defend their win from 2005 and fell 67-80. The turning point for both the men and women came from the field events for the second week in a row. “We were strong up and down in the field events today,” women’s head coach John Gartland said after a good showing from his throwers and jumpers. The Sycamores swept every jumping event with Janae Bridges coming in first in the long jump (18’1.75”), Yolanda Wright first in the triple jump (39’5.75”), Santia Spight first in the high jump (5’7”) and Nikki Royer in the pole vault (10’11.75”). Ebony White single-handedly swept both throwing events with first-place throws of 45’6.50” in the shot put and 51’2.25” in the 20 lb. weight throw. In addition to the dominance in the field events, the Sycamores had three individual winners on the track, including Myra Bess in the 60m hurdles (9.22), Laura Engle in the mile (5:09.78) and Heather Stembridge in the 3000m (10:33.62). “We still need a lot of work,” Gartland said, “but I feel good about a win over a good conference team.” On the men’s side, Illinois State was able to get the victory by sweeping both the triple jump and 200m dash events. Sycamore triple jumpers Paladin Jordan and Steve Daniel didn’t make the trip to Normal and the Redbirds triple jumpers placed one-two. Illinois State repeated their success placing one through five in the 200m dash. Despite the loss, Indiana State found individual winners in the throws with Jason Carruthers tossing 63’7.50” in the 35lb. weight throw and Drew Traub throwing 57’1.50” in the shot put. ISU freshmen Anthony Bertoli and Curt Sunderland came up big for the Sycamores with individual victories in the pole vault and high jump. Bertoli cleared a height of 13’11.25” to claim first by almost a foot, Sunderland’s leap of 6’7.50” was two inches better than the closest Redbird. Nigel Bigbee in the 60m hurdles (8.19) and Sean Wright in the 400m (49.73) rounded out the top finishes for Indiana State. “I didn’t think we had a great meet,” men’s head coach John McNichols said. “I knew we were going to be tested, but it was tough not to have all of our guys out there. We’ll look to get people back in the line-up and back in time to get out and compete.” The men and women will take to the track next week in Bloomington
to face Indiana, Ohio State and Purdue in the Indiana Quadrangular.
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