Senior Wildcats display superiority in meets

Junior Mike Eldredge leaps over a hurdle during the Linfield Erik Anderson Memorial Icebreaker on March 6. Eldredge won the 400-meter hurdles at the Lewis & Clark Spring Break Open on March 20.

The track team’s thirst for success seems to go unquenched despite its athletes’ ever-impressive performances and record-breaking victories this season.
The Wildcats continued an outstanding season at the Lewis & Clark Spring Break Open on March 20.
Senior Marci Klimek turned in two season-best times after winning both the 800- and 1,500-meter races. These times qualify her to run for the Northwest Conference Championships on April 23.
Senior Chris McIsaac also emerged as a Linfield standout. McIsaac, who holds the fastest time in the nation at the Division III level in the 10,000, ran the 5,000 in 15 minutes, 6 seconds, securing the fastest time in the NWC.
In the field events, junior Kaycee Hallstrom won both the hammer and the discus. She finished third in the shot put.
Junior Mike Eldredge won the 400 hurdles with a time of 56.26, which is more than a two-second improvement from his previous personal best of 58.34.
With an aggressive throw of 169 feet, 7 inches, senior Jeremy Lovell won javelin.
Linfield also hosted a multi-event competition March 22-23 at Maxwell Field.
No strangers to the decathlon, seniors Josh and Jeremy Lovell illustrated their dominance of the field both days.
Scoring 7,125 points, Josh Lovell toppled the 18-year-old Linfield decathlon record of 7,113 points set in 1992.
The Lovell brothers finished first and second in last season’s national championships, and neither is showing any signs of slowing down.
Competing in the women’s heptathlon, sophomore Misty Corwin won her first multi-event competition with 3,774 points. Corwin managed to beat out Lewis & Clark senior Liska Havel by only 34 points.
Freshman Devon Taylor competed in her first heptathlon, scoring 2,940 points, securing a sixth-place finish.
Also making a debut in the decathlon, freshman Ben Wilkinson scored 4,270 and placed ninth.
Although there are still a few teams, such as Willamette University, that Linfield hasn’t faced on the track yet, head coach Garry Killgore said he’s not nervous.
“The beauty of track and field is that it is very quantitative,” Killgore said. “It’s pretty easy to compare marks.”
Serving his final season as head coach, Killgore said he anticipates that the team will make an impressive showing at the Northwest Conference Championship, which is only three weeks away.
“We are a team that should be in the top three on both sides,” Killgore said. “On a great day, the guys could win, and the ladies could certainly challenge to win it.”
Killgore said that a large indicator of how the conference meet will unfold is whether everyone on the team decides to accept that challenge and commit themselves to capturing top honors.
Members of Linfield’s distance crew will head down to Willamette on April 2 to compete in the Willamette Invitational. The following day, Linfield will host the Jenn Boyman Memorial Invitational at Maxwell Field. Throwing events kick off at 10:30 a.m., and the running events will commence at 11:30 a.m.