FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Clark Teuscher, Sports Information Director, 630-637-5302
Results
BEREA, Ohio (May 27, 2010) - The North Central College men's track and field team swung for the fences as it opened its bid for the 2010 NCAA Division III Outdoor National Championship, stockpiling 41 points and winning individual national titles in both events in which it competed in the first day of competition on Thursday.
The Cardinals have given themselves a commanding lead in the team competition, as Rowan University (N.J.) is currently a distant second with 14 points.
North Central opened the day with the pole vault competition, as four Cardinals were among the 15 entrants. All four wound up earning All-America honors and placing in the top six overall.
Jake Winder added an outdoor national championship two his two indoor titles, clearing 16 feet, 11 inches to erase the frustrations of his past two appearances in the meet, which both ended in a failure to clear a height.
Winder entered the competition at 15'11 1/4" and cleared the height on his second attempt, and missed just one other attempt before securing the championship. Winder and Michael Dempsey of Rochester Institute of Technology (N.Y.) both cleared the same height, but Winder was awarded first place based on the fewest missed attempts.
For Winder, the victory was a vindication and a study in the importance of adjustments, as he and coach Tim Winder had to make a series of alterations to patch together a winning effort.
""What you can't do is take this event for granted,:" Jake Winder said. "They weren't very good jumps, they didn't feel very good, but I made the stinkin' bar. I made the bar and you can't take that for granted, because for the last two years I haven't made a bar here.
"To come in and make that bar, whether it feels good or not, in front of this crowd is unbelievable. There are so many changes we had to make today in pole selection and runs. God gave me what He gave me today, and luckily today He gave me and my dad the wisdom to not be prideful and make the right adjustments. I have faith in my God, and faith in my coach, and that's what got me here today."
"What made me proudest, being a coach as well as a father today, is in the Bible, Proverbs 18:12 says, 'Before honor comes humility,' " Tim Winder said. "I really believe that scripture, and in vaulting it's very applicable.
"Today it was not happening on the runway for Jake. He was not running well. He knew it and I knew it. What he had to do was humble himself and say, 'I'm not going to jump 18 feet today, but what I can do is what my coach tells me and go to work'. That's what you have to do some days in pole vaulting, because gravity doesn't take a day off."
Winder was joined on the awards stand by three teammates, as Thomas Stacey placed third overall with a jump of 16'7 3/4", while Steven Stack was fifth (16'3 1/4") and John Wood placed sixth (15'11 1/4").
Stack, a senior competing in his first national championship meet, was elated at the opportunity to contribute to his team's efforts to secure another team title.
"I'm still really soaking it in," Stack said. "It's incredible. I came into college jumping 12'6". It's been four years and a lot of hard work, and a little bit of luck, and it's just absolutely incredible. I'm so thankful for my teammates, my coaches, my parents, the gifts I was blessed with to do it. It's just incredible, I still don't believe it.
"Helping out the team is why I'm here. The best part for me is that I came in with no pressure. I wasn't supposed to score any points. I came in and got some points for the team, and I'm so glad I was able to help."
The celebrations continued into the night for North Central, as Kyle Brady and Michael Spain dominated the field in sweeping first and second place in the 10,000-meter run.
After biding their time in the middle of the pack for the first half of the race, Brady and Spain surged to the front and pushed the pace the rest of the way. The lead pack eventually was pared down to just three, as Amherst College's (Mass.) Daniel Murner gamely held on, and the two Cardinals blistered the last mile to put the race away.
Brady crossed the line first to claim his second national championship in 30:15.91, while Spain finished second in 30:21.54. After coming through the 5,000-meter point in 15:32, Brady finished the last 5,000 meters in 14:43, covering the final mile in 4:22. Spain toured the second 5,000 meters in 14:49, turning in a 4:27 final mile.
"I was trying to stay patient and relax as long as I could," said Brady, also the indoor national champion at 5,000 meters. "At about three miles in, we made a move and kept switching off and working together. It worked out really well and we were able to finish strong.
"(Spain)'s a once-in-a-lifetime teammate for me. He makes things so much easier by being out there. I know I'm not out there alone and I have someone to feed off of."
"We always feed off each other," Spain said of the pair's racing strategy. "It's not so much a plan, it's just how we race. It's more instinct than anything at this point, because we've been doing it for three years."
Jacob Austin competed in the preliminary heats of the 1,500-meter run on Thursday, finishing in 3:51.87 to place fifth in his heat and qualify for Saturday's final. The Cardinals' 4x400-meter relay team was disqualified from its preliminary heat.
Steeplechasers Sean Carlson and Chris Kane are the lone competitors for the Cardinals on Friday. Their race is set to begin at 6:05 p.m. Eastern time.
