Dominic Baez
Managing editor
Spring Break usually means a week of fun and relaxation for students. That’s the not the case when it comes to the Linfield track and field athletes. As students traveled to the far-flung reaches of the world to enjoy their week off, the track athletes participated in three events: two meets and a multi-events competition.
The next meet is the Willamette Invitational held at Willamette University at 9 a.m. April 4. The NWC Decathlon and Heptathlon is planned for 9 a.m. April 13 in Tacoma, Wash.
Junior Josh Lovell earned first place at the Linfield Multi-Events competition on March 23 and 24. He scored 6,582 points in the decathlon, beating Clackamas Community College’s sophomore Joseph Gobel, who scored 6,341.
“Going into the meet, I knew it would be a good one because I trained so hard for it,” Lovell said. “I just wanted to put up a good score.”
Lovell took first in the 100-meter hurdles, 15.82 seconds; first in the javelin, 51.87 meters; first in the 100 dash, 11.63 seconds; first in the high jump, 1.93 meters; second in the pole vault, 4.15 meters, tying with senior Gabe Haberly; third in the long jump, 6.73 meters; third in the shot put, 11.2 meters; third in the 400 dash, 52.09 seconds; fifth in the 1500 run, 4:50.36; and ninth in the discus, 28.98 meters.
Both Josh Lovell and his brother junior Jeremy Lovell achieved NCAA Division III provisional qualifying marks. Josh missed the automatic qualifying standard by 18 points.
“It was super windy, super rainy and cold,” Josh said. “It was nice, with those conditions, to be just 18 points shy of automatically qualifying. It shows a lot of where I am right now.”
In the heptathlon, junior Laura Sibley placed fourth, scoring 3590 points. She placed first in the 800 by five seconds.
“I think it was good for where I’m at right now, especially with the weather,” she said. “I was definitely satisfied with fourth. Especially out of 14 girls, you can’t really be upset with that. If I would have placed any lower, I would have been dissatisfied.”
Sibley plans to participate in the next heptathlon.
“I didn’t have a personal record in any of my events, so I think I can work on focusing more and knowing that I can do better,” she said. “In particular, the 100-meter hurdles: I can improve on that a lot; and the 800: My goal is to run 10 seconds faster than I ran last week.”
For the next decathlon, Lovell said he will work on his weaker events, particularly the throws.
“I’m always improving, always trying to be better,” he said. “The weather can’t have an effect; there are 15 other guys going through the same thing, too. But I love doing this because of the camaraderie; I wouldn’t do anything else.”
On March 21, junior Marci Klimek [moved] up to No. 2 on the Linfield 3,000 steeplechase ladder, and Linfield [claimed] the top four spots in the men’s javelin at Lewis & Clark’s Griswold Stadium, according to the Linfield athletic Web site.
On March 14, the ’Cats participated in the Northwest Conference Preview meet held at Pacific University’s Lincoln Park Stadium in Forest Grove, Ore. According to the athletic Linfield web site, the Linfield Wildcats did well.
The men claimed 11 wins, and the women took first in six events during the non-scoring meet, which included teams from George Fox, Lewis & Clark, Pacific and Southern Oregon universities