Tiger Teams Take Second at First SCIAC Meet of 2008
CLAREMONT, Calif. (March 1, 2008) – Occidental College competed in the first Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference meet of the season today at Pomona-Pitzer. Both the Tiger men’s and women’s teams finished second among the seven and eight teams competing, respectively.
On the women's side there were three individual event winners. Junior Kera Bartlett won the women's pole vault with an 11'6" clearance, reaching a provisional qualifying mark for Division III Nationals, with the top mark in the nation thus far. Bartlett, who finished sixth last year at National Championships, looks poised to go even higher in the coming weeks after narrowly missing 11'10" on two of her three attempts.
Sophomore Libby Mislan won the women's 400m in a season best time of 60.84 and fellow sophomore Elissa Chandler won the women's 300m hurdles.
Oxy got other notable performances from junior Patty Armentrout who came fourth in the women's long jump with a 16' leap, which was her second best mark ever. Armentrout also came in joint 3rd in the pole vault, to tie freshman Diana Martin and sophomore Sara Hooker, two other Oxy athletes, at 9'6'. Senior Kaja Martin improved upon her best mark of the season in the javelin, throwing a solid 115'11” to finish second. Sophomore Maddie Weissman produced her second best ever 1500m race time, crossing the finish line in an encouraging 5:01.52.
For the men, senior Chris Kyles continued his impressive recent form, launching the discus out to a new lifetime best of 148', which marked a four-foot improvement on his best mark from last year. Kyles also had a good day with the hammer recording a best mark of 139'03". Another senior who contributed was Tyler Phillips who recorded a seasonal best in the 110 meter hurdles with a time of 16.58. Sophomore Sam Huie placed second in the triple-jump as he recorded a seasonal best with a mark of 43'9" that was just an inch off of his lifetime best. On the track, sophomore Victor Kali looks to be in the best shape of his life after recording a personal best of 4:16.
Many of the distance runners were not entered in events at today’s meet as they were training in Eagle Rock for the upcoming Distance Carnival at Occidental in two weeks.
Saturday, March 14, will be the first home meet of the season for Oxy with events scheduled to begin at 6:00 p.m. Numerous members of the SCIAC Championship Tiger Cross Country teams will attempt to meet NCAA Division III National qualifying marks at this event.
Saturday, March 15 the teams will travel to Claremont, Calif for the SCIAC Top-4 meet hosted by Claremont-Mudd-Scripps. Events will begin at 12:00 p.m.
