Evie Sanford's school record in the shot put improved by the slimmest of margin, and The College of Wooster track and field program logged 14 top-five showings at Saturday's 12-team Bob Shannon Invitational, which took place at Denison University.
Sanford upped an already-held school record in the shot put for the second time this season, throwing a quarter inch further on Saturday. Sanford's 42 feet, 11.75 inches led the field and kept the senior in the top-25 nationally. Sanford also placed sixth in the weight throw, with a top mark of 43 feet, 10.5 inches.
A bulk of Wooster's scoring came in the field, as Wooster had five top-six marks. Junior
Claire Davis went 31 feet, 8 inches for runner-up honors in the triple jump. That marked a season-best for Davis, and it was backed up by the third-place mark of 30 feet, 7 inches from junior
Ellie Fox. Senior
Sarah Hiestand rounded out the top-six field placements by clearing 9 feet, 8 inches in the pole vault.
Wooster's middle distance runners powered the track events. Junior
Reeve Helvoigt started off the trio of fifth-place times with a 5:52.17 in the mile. Senior
Amy Gabrovsek covered the 400 meters in 1:03.76. Senior
Sophia Mellis rounded out the fifth-place finishes with a time of 2:27.02 in the 800 meters, which marked a collegiate-best by over two seconds. Helvoigt and Gabrovsek both logged collegiate-bests with their respective times in the mile and 400.
Wooster's men were led by the 5,000 meters, as the Scots had four scorers in the event and picked up 20 points. Sophomore
Grant Mentzer's collegiate-best 16:54.82 was the runner-up time. Mentzer was followed by sophomore
Basil Keck, whose fourth-place time of 17:00.78 was a collegiate-best by nearly 50 seconds. Junior
Nick Schade's fifth-place time of 17:44.20 kept the collegiate-best theme going, as Schade's prior top college time was 18:25.87. Senior
Charlie Cuttino was equally impressive, lowering the top 5,000 meters time by double-digit seconds with the sixth-place pace of 17:44.39.
Senior
Zane DeMercurio raced to the second-place time of 2:04.05 in the 800 meters and was sixth in the mile at 4:39.41. First-year
Max Kollhoff went 4:45.67 for third in his first time running the mile as a Scot. Senior
Reese Johnson rounded out the top-four individual runners with a 2:06.34 in the 800 meters.
Wooster had a strong showing in the meet's finale, as Johnson, senior
Jake George, first-year
Jalen Mitman, and Kolhoff teamed up for the fourth-place time of 3:37.13 in the 4x400 relay.
Elsewhere, sophomore
Franklin Adu-Baah sprinted his way to the finals of the 60-meter dash with the fifth-place time of 7.15. He posted a near-identical 7.17 in finals for sixth. Senior
Essaie Mezmur cleared 6 feet, 0.75 inch for third in the high jump and junior
Zephan Deal rounded out the scoring places in the event, clearing 5 feet, 8.75 inches.
Wooster's men were fourth of 12 teams with 64.5 points. The Scots' women claimed sixth with 43 points. Case Western Reserve University (104 points) and Denison (95 points) won the meet on the men's and women's side, respectively.
Next, Wooster is at the Ohio Wesleyan University Open on Friday, Feb. 13. Field events start at 5 p.m., with track events to follow at 7 p.m.