KEVIN JENISON

GoSycamores.com

BLOOMINGTON, IND. ? Indiana State University picked up one more victory at the Indiana Relays this weekend as the women's 4x800 meter relay team outran eight other teams to win in a school record time of 9:08.43. That broke the record of 9:08.97 set last year.

The team of Allison Malone, Adriane Wunderlich, Heather Stembridge and Kacie Klem ran past Indiana (9:09.64) and Ohio State (9:13.18) to post the victory.

Klem picked up her second victory at the Indiana Relays by anchoring the relay team. The Sycamore freshman won the mile race on Friday.

“Klem took the baton in third behind Indiana and Ohio State,” John Gartland, Indiana State women's track and field coach, said. “It was close all the way but she had a blazing kick and was able to outrace the Big Ten schools.

“Generally we did pretty well,” Gartland said. “The competition was excellent.”

Erica Moore ran to a third place finish in the 800 meter invitational, finishing in 2:07.51 which was a provisional qualifying effort.

“She qualified for the same event a year ago,” Gartland said, “but she will have to run faster to make it to the NCAA Indoor Championships. This was a good performance for her against some quality competition.”

Moore also placed fifth in the 60 meter hurdles with a time of 9.06.

Jeanne' Middleton placed sixth in the 60 meter dash (7.64) and then stepped in to run on the 4x400 meter relay due to an injury, helping that relay team to a fourth place finish in 3:55.18. Also on that team were Mary Kate Conway, Kaci Smith and Erica Moore.

In other track events, Dana Sander finished ninth in the 200 meters (27.44), Rachel Posey placed seventh (48.45) and Conway eighth (58.51) in the 400 meters, and Emily Pugh eighth (18:48.37) and Bethany Scruton ninth (19:01.90) in the 5000 meters.

Lauren Martin placed second in the triple jump with a leap of 40-feet-06.75 (12.36 meters) but had to pull out of the long jump with a slight injury. Alicia Fritschi was fourth (11-feet-10.5) and Nikki Royer fifth (11-feet-04.5) in the invitational pole vault. Kelsey Hanley placed third in the weight throw with a toss of 55-feet-11.75 (17.06 meters) with Kortney Unger ninth (47-feet-9) and Autumn Sowders 11th (45-feet-04.25). Sowders was also 11th in the shot put with a heave of 38-feet-07.5 (11.77 meters).

“This was a tough meet for the athletes in the field events,” Gartland said. “They had to qualify on Friday and then come back and compete again on Saturday. Most times, we had better results in the preliminaries than in the finals.”

John McNichols, men's track and field coach, said that his team did not have a very good meet this weekend.

“There were a lot of mishaps and efforts that were not up to what we were expecting,” McNichols said.

The highlight of the meet for the men's team came on Friday when Major Clay won the high jump in a jump off over Purdue's Adetayo Adesanya.

“Clay went over seven-feet for the third straight meet to win the event,” McNichols said. “It was probably the best competition we had during the weekend.”

One of the mishaps that plagued the Sycamores came in the invitational 5000 meters when Scott Keeney had his foot stepped on by the runner behind him, which tore off his shoe. Keeney had to stop, put the shoe back on and try to catch up, eventually finishing 10th with a time of 15:00.88.

Anthony Bertoli reached the finals of the 600 meters, finishing fourth with a time of 1:20.86. Gary Ogburn finished fourth in the invitational 200 meters with a time of 22.39, James Twitchell was seventh in the open 800 meters (2:00.33), and Eric Schulz eighth (8:39.67) and Josh Bedford 28th (9:11.10) in the 3000 meters.

The 4x400 relay team of Bertoli, Ogburn, Colton Slack and Sean Wright finished sixth in 3:19.22 while the 4x800 team of Jeremy Brown, Drake Sterling, Twitchell and Kyle Walsh was fifth in 7:46.94

Brandon Pounds was the second collegian and placed third overall in the shot put with a heave of 56-feet-05.25 (17.20 meters). In the weight throw, Josh Williams finished sixth (57-feet-11.75) and Anthony Lewis seventh (55-feet-03).

Ernest Rollins placed third in the triple jump with a leap of 45-feet-11.75 (14.01 meters) while Bertoli placed sixth in the pole vault invitational with a vault of 15-feet-05.75 (4.72 meters).