Sports > April 26, 2007

By Lindsay Hamilton | Staff writer

This past weekend, both the men and women of the track team traveled to College Park, Md. for the ACC Championships.

Proving successful from the very beginning of competition, the women and men finished seventh and ninth, respectively, at the end of the weekend.

“It was the best team effort across all the events since I have been at Wake,” said Director of Track and Field Annie Bennett. “I was so pleased with the support that the women’s and men’s teams gave each other. It was a tremendous coaching job by our staff. Each coach’s athletes stepped up and help the team in all areas.”

Senior Michelle Sikes set high standards for competition with her success in the 10,000-meter run, April 19 the first day of competition, .

Her time of 32:58.20 broke both the school and a 23-year-old ACC record. In the same event, junior Caitlin Chrisman finished seventh with a time of 34:52.38. Sophomore Carly Mauch placed fourth in the javelin throw with a personal best throw of 142’08”. For the men, senior Michael Hauck placed seventh overall in the javelin with a throw of 188’01”, scoring the Deacons’ first points of the meet.

Freshman Tyler Dodds and his teammate sophomore Taylor Wildman both finished in the top 10 in the decathlon and moved on to the next day of competition in the event.

Dodds also contributed greatly for the men by placing second in the 100-meter dash with a time of 11.01 and winning the 400-meter dash with a time of 49.15.

On the second day of competition, 11 Deacs managed to place in preliminaries for their finals April 21. Sophomores Nicole Schappert and Allison Kieffer ran times in the 1,500-meter of 4:34.13 and 4:29.29, respectively, to qualify for the finals.

In the 400-meter hurdles, both freshman Alexandra Gove and junior Michelle Duffey qualified with times of 1:01.07 and 1:01.09, respectively. Junior Melissa Council ran the 400-meter with a time of 54.83 to qualify as well.

Competing in the finals of her event April 20, junior Molly Kennedy finished with a personal best 4,784 points in the heptathlon for seventh overall.

Her male counterparts, Dodds and Wildman, finished eighth and ninth overall with scores of 6,312 and 6,215, respectively.

Scoring additional points for the men were junior Oderah Nwaeze, finishing sixth in the long jump (23-8) for a seasonal best and freshman Thomas Sensing, who had a personal best throw of 157-02 in the discus to finish in sixth as well.

Also for the men, sophomore Phillip Warsaw qualified for the 400-meter hurdles with a time of 53.01 and freshman Keaton Morgan qualified for the 1,500-meter with a time of 3:57.22.

In the 200-meter, junior Michael Bingham qualified for the finals with a time of 20.86. He also qualified with a time of 46.75 in the in the 400-meter dash, finishing first. His classmate Kevin Marion also qualified in the 200-meter with a time of 21.12 and in the 100-meter with a time of 10.50.

Along with qualifying for those finals, Marion competed in the finals for the long jump. He placed third in the event with a regionally qualifying leap of 24’2.5” .

On the third and final day of the championships, Marion placed sixth in the finals of his 100-meter dash (10.62) and 200-meter dash (21.53), contributing to the men’s total points.

His teammate sophomore Phillip Warshaw placed seventh in the 400-meter hurdles, along with Duffey and Alexandra Grove finishing fifth and sixth, respectively, in the women’s same event. For the women, Melissa Council placed sixth in the 400-meter dash (54.61), and senior Lindsay Neuberger tossed a personal best 52-01 in the shot put, also breaking her own Wake Forest record.

For the women, sophomore Alison Kieffer placed seventh in the 1,500-meter run (4:30.85), while for the men freshman Keaton Morgan finished twelfth with a time of 3:59.87.

In the team relay events, Duffey, Council, Grove, and Castronuova finished fifth for the women in the 4x400 m, breaking a school record with a time of 3:41.97. Their male counterparts Dodds, Seely, Warsaw and Reid placed third in the same event with a time of 3:11.20. For the women in the 4x100-meter (Grove, Council, Spooner, Castronuova), they received sixth place for their time of 46.50.

The men’s team of Seely, Marion, Reid and Bingham finished third in the same event with a time of 40.29. Unfortunately for the men, Bingham suffered an injury during the event that made him unable to participate in his 200-meter and 400-meter dash events. The men placed ninth overall with a score of 35 points, with the women placing seventh overall with 54, most impressively with help from Sikes. She ran a time of 16:17.12 in the 5,000-meter to win her second ACC championship event, the only on the team to do so.