TRACK AND FIELD MEET RECAPS

By Dave Frank

MHC District Meet

Mount Hood Community College

May 13-14, 2008

Your Rams had big hopes for the 2008 MHC District Meet as they approached Day One at MHCC with four field event finals (HJ, PV, LJ, Discus), one track event final (3000m), and preliminary heats in almost all other running events scheduled for this day.  Given the weather of the past few months it came as no surprise when “64° and partly cloudy” turned out to be “55° and a light, steady rain”.  When, halfway through the meet, the rain subsided, it was a pretty darned nice night for competition.

Unfortunately, most of the field events had been contested by then, but that didn’t stop the Ram men from turning in some fine performances.  In the discus, senior NICK GREEN twirled the platter 138’9 for a 5th place finish.  While it wasn’t a personal best mark, Nick’s effort was a fine one in his first season as a discus thrower.  Given another season, there is little doubt that Nick could be a State Meet finalist, but instead he’ll take his golden right arm to the Air Force Academy and join the football Falcons. Full Article

Oregon State Meet

Historic Hayward Field, University of Oregon

May 22-24, 2008

Entered in just six events at the State Meet, the Ram men hoped to continue their five year streak of top 10 finishes and had visions of a trophy finish.  In previous years we’d been 7th (’07), 5th (’06), 10th (’05), 7th (’04), and 9th (’03).  With State Meet veterans TAYLOR MORGAN ’08 and NATHAN LIGHTNER ’09 both entered in two events – and expected to score highly in each of those events – a top 10 appeared likely.  If we could garner a few points from AUSTIN JONES ’08 in the 3000m and from our short relay (Lightner and the sophomores – SETH DOWNES, LUCAS NOLING, JOSH JANSSEN), a top 4 trophy finish would be a real possibility.

Thursday’s schedule included three Ram events:  qualifying in the 4 x 100m Relay and 800m Run and the finals of the 3000m Run.  A year ago it would have been hard to imagine our short relay team at the State Meet, let alone with hopes of medaling.  Last year’s top time was 45.19a; this year’s team added first year sophs Janssen and Downes along with classmate Noling and returner Lightner to move all the way to #7 on CC’s all time list with their 43.51a clocking at the MHC District Meet last week.  In previous years at the State Meet, a time of 43.3 typically qualifies for the final, and we were confident that we could run that.  On this day were both right and wrong.  43.33a did make the final as the third automatic qualifier in the first heat.  We ran 43.19a – the #6 time at CC – but finished sixth in the second heat.  Heats are seeded according to District Meet times; qualifying for finals is based on finish place (top three in each heat qualify) and time (the top two teams not in the top three also qualify).  In most cases the heats are balanced; here the second heat was simply faster and left our boys proud of the race they’d run – but disappointed to be watching the finals on Saturday. Full Article