FEBRUARY 10, 2001
MEN'S AND WOMEN'S TRACK AND FIELD
The Calvin men's and women's track and field teams opened the year with strong performances at an indoor invitational hosted by Grand Valley State Friday night in Allendale.
The two Calvin teams combined to set five meet records Friday with junior Lindsay Mulder (Calvin Christian) accounting for two of them. A two-time All-American in the long jump, Mulder cranked out a meet-record leap of 18-10 to win the event by nearly two feet. Mulder then ran a leg on Calvin's 4 X 400 meter relay team that established a new meet record with a time of 4:03.12. Mulder was joined on the relay by senior Sara Veltkamp (Grand Rapids Christian), freshman Dana Haan (Lynden, WA) and senior Megan Pierce (Fort Wayne, IN). Pierce also took first place in the 200 meters with a time of 26:16.
In addition, Calvin junior Rachel Veltkamp (Grand Rapids Christian) took first place in the women's pole vault with a meet record height of 11-0.
Veltkamp's mark was one of two meet records established by Calvin in the pole vault as senior Mark DeWeerd (Unity Christian) won the men's long jump with a meet-record mark of 16-0. Junior Jason DeVries (Unity Christian) and freshman Dan Rinzema (Unity Christian) took fifth and eighth place respectively in the event as DeVries finished at 13-6 while Rinzema cleared 12-6.
The Calvin men's 4 x 400 meter relay team of senior Eric Hansen (Big Rapids), sophomore Steve Abbring (Highland, IN), junior Keith VanGoor (Midland Park, NJ) and senior Phil Sikkenga (Wheaton, IL) also came up with a meet-record performance as the quartet clocked in with a tie of 3:25.26. The Calvin relay earned national runner-up honors at last year's NCAA III Outdoor Track and Field Championships.
Hansen, VanGoor and Abbring were part of a 4-5-6 Calvin finish in the 400 meters as Hansen was fourth (51.56); VanGoord fifth (51.83) and Abbring sixth (51.94). Sikkenga added a fifth place performance in the 55 meter dash with a time of 6.70. Other highlights for the Calvin men included a second place jump of 42-1 ½ by sophomore Jonathon Hutchful (Harare, Ghana) in the triple jump (42-1 ½); a fourth place jump of 6-6 by sophomore Cameron Baron (Lake Stevens, WA) in the high jump and a fifth place time of 15:47.48 by senior Paul Petersen (Crawfordsville, IN) in the 5,000 meters.
Other notables for the Calvin women included an eighth place finish by sophomore Liz Frens (Grand Rapids Christian) with a personal-best throw of 37-9 ½ in the shot put; a third place finish by freshman Sarah Weeda (Manhattan, MT) in the triple jump (33-8 ¾); and a 2-3 finish by freshman Jessie Lair (Bloomfield Hills) and junior Lindsay Carrier (Tri-unity Christian) in the 5,000 meters with Lair clocking in at 19:09.08 and Carrier at 19:09.33. Junior Laura Medema (Grand Rapids Christian) added a second place time of 11:07.77 in the 3,000 meters while Haan and freshman Jill Baker (Strathroy, ON) were 4-5 in the 55 meters with respective times of 7.73 and 7.74. Baker also took fifth in the 200 meters (28.13).
Sophomore Anne VanderLaan (Grand Rapids Christian) also had a strong evening, taking third in the 55-meter hurdles (8.81) and seventh in the long jump (15-10). Sophomore Rebecca Baber (Brandon, WI) added a sixth place performance of 15-11 ½ in the long jump and a sixth place jump of 33-3 ½ while her sister Mae Baber (Brandon, WI) was seventh in the tripole jump (32-9 ½).
Both teams will compete at an indoor invitational hosted by Eastern Michigan University next Saturday.
-end-
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Feb 10 2001 - 14:10:07 EST