Durham earns two first place finishes as Women's Track & Field wins Polar Bear Invitational

By Jeni Kmic

ADA-Ohio Northern hosted its annual Polar Bear Invitational on Saturday at the ONU Sports Center where the women's track and field team placed first of four teams scoring 203 points.

Cuyahoga Community came in second with 196, followed by Macomb in third with 101 and Oakland in fourth with 37.

Sophomore Jessica Durham won the events she competed in, winning shot put and weight throw with tosses of 35-02.50 and 44-02.50, respectively.

Freshman Shannon Hageman took first in long jump at 15-11.75, while senior Aubrie Stechsculte took first in pole vault clearing 11-05.75.

The 4x200 team consisting of Hageman, junior Jordan Buchanan, freshman Gabrielle Metzner and sophomore Emily Blum took first place with a time of 1:52.48.

Buchanan also finished second in the 400 run with a time of 1:05.53, and Blum finished second place in the triple jump at 32-02.

Additional second place finishes went to sophomore Alyse Fitzpatrick in the 60 dash in 8.90, sophomore Brittany Lang in the 800 with a time of 2:32.10 and sophomore Katie Klopp in the 500 with a time of 1:27.14.

Sophomore Kayti Kintner also had second place in the 1 mile with a time of 5:41.80, as did sophomore Sarah Thompson in the 3,000 run with a time of 11:19.06.

"This was a small, low key meet. Our primary focus was to tune up for the conference meet next week," head coach Jason Maus said. "We got a few folks qualified for next weekend so we accomplished what we wanted to do."

The Polar Bears are back in action next weekend at Otterbein for the OAC Championships.

Events start at noon on Friday and 10 a.m. on Saturday.