The Ohio State women’s track and field team finished fifth and the men’s team finished ninth in the 2005 Big Ten Championships hosted Friday through Sunday at Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium.
Illinois won the women’s conference championship with 135 points and Wisconsin took the men’s team title with 174 points. The OSU women scored 85 points to finish fifth while the men posted 52.5 points for a ninth-place finish.
The Buckeye jumpers paced the way for OSU, sweeping the women’s jumping events. Senior jumper Shayla Moore won her first Big Ten championship with a jump of 42 feet 7 inches in the triple jump. Moore beat out classmate Rosalind Goodwin, who won the women’s long jump with a leap of 20-1 ½ and placed third in the triple jump with a leap of 42-2 ¼.
“I just wanted one championship before I left here,” Moore said. “I went out there and gave it my all. I knew I was going to have some stiff competition, so I just got focused and jumped what I had to jump.”
OSU sophomore Jessie Stringer won the women’s high jump with a leap of 5-10.
Moore and Goodwin have won seven of the last eight Big Ten titles in the women’s horizontal championships. Jumps coach Tom Doyle said he was not the least bit surprised in how the girls performed.
“Championships at this level are never easy to win,” Doyle said. “(The coaches) can only get them so ready, but they have to have it within themselves to be able to take on the pressure and get it done.”
Coach Russ Rogers said he has never had two jumpers at the same time of the quality of Moore and Goodwin in his 30 years of coaching.
“I watched them grow from little kids to young ladies and to me that’s more important than winning,” Rogers said. “I know that we’re out here to win but seeing them develop into decent human beings, that really makes me proud.”
On the track, sophomore Jenna Harris won the women’s 100-meter dash by .002 of a second as her time of 11.608 seconds squeaked past Sierra Hauser-Price of Indiana. Harris, who also placed third in the 200-meter dash, tallied a total of 23 team points for OSU as she helped the women’s 4x400m relay team run a season-best time of 3:44:78 for a fourth place finish. She also contributed to a fourth place finish in the 4x100m dash.
“I had no idea I had even won the race because it was so close. I just was trying to catch my breath and wait on the announcement over the loud speaker,” said Harris of her 100-meter win. “I think it was a good day overall. I’m pleased with the way we ran in the way I ran in the 200 and the way we ran in the 4×4, so I have no complaints.”
On the men’s side, junior sprinter Todd Dutch placed third in the 100-meter dash with a time of 10.42. Freshman Tony Cole finished behind him in 10.51. Dutch, who also placed third in the 200-meter dash in 21.06, said he was not too pleased with his turnout.
“I’ve had better days,” Dutch said. “The weather played a huge part (Saturday), but mechanically everything just wasn’t where it should’ve been.”
Senior throwers Bryan Duby and Shelaine Larson felt the same as Dutch. A disappointing performance by Duby placed him third in the hammer throw while Larson grabbed second in the women’s hammer throw and sixth in the discus.
“You definitely want to do good at home and I feel like I’m letting people down because you practice all year long for this one meet and then to come out of it without a win is kind of disappointing,” Duby said.
Other notable finishes for the Buckeyes included a second-place finish in the 3,000-meter steeplechase by senior Aaron Fisher, a fourth-place finish by sophomore Nicole Gliem in the women’s 5,000-meter and a fourth-place finish in the men’s 5,000-meter by junior Dan Glaz.
The Buckeyes move on to the NCAA Mideast Regional Championships May 28-29 in Bloomington, Ind.
Lantern sports editor Jeff Svoboda contributed to this story.
