The Oho State track team rounded out their injury-plagued season last weekend as they competed in the Jesse Owens Classic at Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium. Despite a sub-par team performance, individually the Buckeyes made some noise.
Junior sprinter Todd Dutch and senior sprinter Jenna Harris both qualified for the NCAA Mideast Regional in the 100 and 200-meter dashes, while senior Tamecia Brown and freshman Laura Piper won the women’s 800-meter and mile respectively.
“I think we really ran well because the weather was good and this was one of the first times they really got a chance to get out there and open up,” coach Russ Rogers said. “I was very happy with a lot of the performances because pretty much everybody ran close to their personal best on the year.”
Dutch’s winning time of 10.30 seconds in the 100-meter dash was a personal-best and topped former Buckeye All-American Joel Brown, who clocked in at 10.32 for World Express Track Club. He also helped OSU take first in the 4×100-meter relay, running the second leg in a season-best time of 41.18 seconds. In the 200-meter dash, Dutch finished second to Brown, clocking in at 20.83 seconds, good for a regional mark.
“Mechanically everything was good but it was a lot of things that I could’ve worked on,” Dutch said. “I’ve always been mechanically sound. Now I’m just being more diligent with it and perfecting it. Practice makes habit and it’s starting to become a habit in the race.”
Senior Rosalind Goodwin won both horizontal jumps. Her leap of 43 feet, 6 inches was a season high in the triple jump, defeating senior teammate Shayla Moore’s leap of 41 feet, 8 1/2 inches. She also won the long jump, going a distance of 19 feet, 11 1/2 inches. Both jumps qualified for the Mideast Regionals.
“It was an overall good meet. It wasn’t what I expected, but I wasn’t too much concerned with who was going to be here or what other people were jumping I was just more focused on working on my jumps and techniques,” Goodwin said.
Other Buckeyes that performed well included freshman Marios Lacovou, who jumped 7 feet, 1/4 inch in the high jump, becoming just the third Buckeye to top the 7-foot mark in school history. Sophomore Jessie Stringer took second in the women’s high jump with a jump of 5 feet, 7 inches.
Senior Shelaine Larson set another season best for 2005 as she tossed the hammer 46-8 3/4, good for first place. She also placed second in the shot put and third in the discus.
In the hammer throw, senior Bryan Duby reached a career-best mark of 207-8 to place fifth in a top rated field, where Ashland Elite’s A.G. Krueger established a stadium and meet record with a wining mark of 247-8.
The Buckeyes swept the 3,000-meter runs. Junior Dan Glaz set a stadium record with a time of 8:13:35, beating freshman teammate Braden Martinez, who took third with a 8:16:03. Sophomore Nicole Gliem won the 3,000-meter for the women in 9:48:09.
Former Buckeye All-American Rob Myers competed in invitational events. Myers, who placed third in the U.S. Olympic Trials last July, ran in the mile invite and took first with a time 3:59.55.
