Welcome back to the Scot Rewind, where WoosterAthletics.com is taking a look back at a big win, a monster individual performance, or a significant milestone corresponding with each week of the 2020-2021 academic year. When the North Coast Athletic Conference first started, The College of Wooster's women's track and field program was the deepest its ever been, and that resulted in four consecutive outdoor conference championships. This week's rewind takes a look at the 1986 NCAC Outdoor Championships, where the Fighting Scots had 10 first-place finishes.
Univer Bukhala, who captured first place in four events and was a member of a first-place relay team, was named Most Valuable Track Performer after leading Wooster's women's track and field team to its second consecutive NCAC championship.
Wooster won the championship with 171.5 points, followed by Allegheny College, which mounted a stiff challenge, but finished second at 144.5. Ohio Wesleyan University was third with 87 points, followed by Oberlin College (75), Kenyon College (42), Denison University (24), and Case Western Reserve University (20).
Bukhala won the 100 meters with a time of 12.0 and the 200 meters with a time of 26.7. In addition, she won the long jump at 17 feet, 9.75 inches and the triple jump with a NCAC-record mark of 37 feet, .5 inch. She was also a member of the 4x100 relay, which finished first with a time of 50.72. Colleen McCauley, Rhonda Belcher, and Stephanie Kazmierski rounded out the winning relay.
Despite Bukhala's heroics, she was not the only one who performed well for Wooster, as three sophomores combined for five first-place finishes. Holly Halterman finished first in the high jump (5 feet) and the 100-meter hurdles (16.0). Linda Stevenson won the 5,000 meters with a time of 18:48 and the 10,000 meters with a school-record time of 40:27.2. Kazmierski broke the tape in the 400-meter hurdles at 59.8.
Another sophomore, Katie Keller, set a school record and qualified for the NCAA Div. III Championships in the 1,500 meters with a time of 4:43.29. She'll join Bukhala, who qualified previously in the long jump and triple jump, at the national meet May 20-23 in Wisconsin.
Keller also finished second and netted all-conference honors in the 3,000 meters, with a school-record time of 10:46.13. Becky Pickett picked up all-conference honors by finishing third in the 10,000 meters with a time of 40:55.5, as did McCauley, who finished third in the 400 meters at 1:00.5. Rowena Tan finished third in the long jump (16 feet) and triple jump (33 feet, 11 inches), while the Scots' 4x400 relay team of Halterman, McCauley, Kazmierski, and Lisa Diment finished second with a time of 4:14.15.
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