The Omnibus

Issue date: 5/11/07 Section: Sports

Senior T. Jay Sanderson paced the men's track and field team as he came away with gold at the MIAA Championship meet.

The Southwest Baptist men's track and field team traveled to Hays, Kan. the weekend of May 5-6 with thoughts of climbing out of the cellar in the MIAA. It was just a couple months ago that the youthful men's team had accomplished this feat at the MIAA Indoor Championships by surpassing Truman State and gaining significant ground on the rest of the field. However, at the MIAA Outdoor Championships, the 'Cats were unable to avoid their annual fate of last place.
For the second consecutive week, the Bearcats had to deal with numerous weather delays due to thunderstorms in the area.
"Overall, I am very proud of the athletes and the effort each and every one of them gave," said Track and Field Head Coach Corey McElhaney. "With the horrible weather and numerous delays, our athletes endured and left everything on the track."
Despite the adverse weather conditions, the meet started well for SBU when senior thrower Ben Kirkpatrick set a new school record in the men's hammer throw. Kirkpatrick's throw of 52.27 meters was good enough for sixth place and All-MIAA honors. The throw also just missed the NCAA provisional mark by .27 meters. Kirkpatrick headed to Missouri Southern Thursday, May 10 and will head to Rend Lake Saturday, May 12 to try to meet the qualifying standard for nationals.
Saturday also saw a strong performance from freshman Shawn Etzenhouser in the preliminaries for the 800-meter run. Etzenhouser got off the line quickly and tailed senior Marcus Walton (ranked seventh in the nation) all the way through the finish line. Etzenhouser's race was fast enough to qualify him for finals in the loaded 800-meter field.
The Bearcats got off to a solid start again on Sunday behind the effort of sophomore John McCoy. McCoy, who was competing for the first time this year, dominated the lesser heat in the javelin throw and put himself in solid position for finals.
Due to weather delays totaling approximately three hours, finals were taken out of the equation and the javelin thrower's best throw from preliminaries is all that counted. This decision landed McCoy in fifth place with All-MIAA honors, but robbed him of the chance to improve on his standing heading into finals.

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