Division III Championships Day 1 Recap: Sprints & Field

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Ten Division III national champions were crowned on Friday in Winston-Salem: men and women in the long jump, weight throw, pole vault, 5000, and DMR. The sprint and field events are covered below.

The very first one was Sean Donnelly of Mount Union, with the greatest series of weight throws in DIII history. On his second throw, he broke his own meet record by one centimeter with a toss of 20.93m. On his third throw, he broke the nine-year-old national record held by La Crosse’s Kevin Becker, launching the 35-pound implement 21.27 meters.

His first two throws in the finals were relatively conservative. After SUNY Oneonta’s Pat Weinert took his final throw and Donnelly had the title wrapped up, the other throwers started the slow clap typically reserved for jumpers, and Donnelly knew he could throw recklessly. It paid off, as Donnelly unleashed a massive throw of 21.75 meters. That’s the first in DIII history over 70 feet, and would have been the 12th best in Division I this year. We talked to Donnelly after his massive accomplishment.

Trickle-down economics might be fictional in the real world, but the effect is real in the field events. Pat Weinert of Oneonta and John Dayton of Springfieldwere just fourth and fifth on the 2015 descending order list. Now the two are fifth and sixth in DIII history. Weinert threw 20.47 meters for second, and Dayton threw 20.38 for third, both PRing by about a meter.

Whitewater’s Lexie Sondgeroth only long jumped twice all season, but leapt 5.74m on her third jump of the day to beat Illinois Wesleyan freshman Amelia Gluck by a centimter for the win. That’s Sondgeroth’s second career national championship, after winning the outdoor 400 last spring.

That was one of three field event wins for the WIAC on Friday: the conference swept the long jump, as La Crosse’s Dominique Neloms won the men’s LJ. I talked to him after.Tomorrow, Neloms will look to be the first DIII man to win the long jump and high jump at nationals since St. Thomas’s Leonard Jones won the long, high, and triple since 1994.

And Oshkosh’s Melanie Brickner won the weight throw. Both Brickner and Neloms won their events with marks well shy of their season bests. It’s the first-ever national title for Brickner, while Neloms won the indoor long jump last year.

The women’s pole vault was a near carbon copy of last year’s final, with MIT’s Cimran Virdi and Marissa Kalsey of Westminster (Pa.) topping out at the same height, with Virdi winning on misses. Last year, they both cleared 3.85m; this year, the duo improved to 4.00m.

Virdi and Kalsey provided an entertaining clash of styles. The former seemed incredibly relaxed, telling me that she spent most of the afternoon talking about a youtube video. (She was also audibly debating churro nomenclature) And Kalsey was willfully, happily obsessive compulsive. On each of her final three jumps of the day, she ran the three-minute clock all the way down, not starting her runup until there were about 15 seconds remaining. Virdi took about three minutes less per jump. But the results were almost exactly the same, minus Kalsey’s four misses at earlier heights.

The men’s pole vault wasn’t a repeat of last year, but it was pretty similar to past vault championships in that a Winder from North Central got the win. Luke, a freshman, is the third Winder brother to win a D3 PV title. The competition was a little spicier than expected. Tim Moses of Messiah–an extremely apt school/surname combo if there ever were one–set a huge PB at 5.25 meters to push Winder much harder than expected.

One of the minor upsets on day 1 was Illinois Wesleyan’s Allie Boudreau knocking off Baldwin Wallace’s Melanie Winters in the heptathlon. Winters led through four events, and came into the meet with better PBs in three out of the five events, but no matter. Boudreau was able to clinch the event by beating Winters by 14 seconds, 2:17 to 2:31, in the 800.

Several events held preliminaries on Friday. Most of the favorites advanced, but a few big names didn’t. Adriana Wright of Lehman will not have an opportunity to win the sprint triple tomorrow; she didn’t make it out of the 60 prelims. Defending men’s 200 meter champ Thurgood Dennis of Eau Claire failed to qualify in that event, though he made it out of the 60. And No. 2 all-time DIII performer Terrence Gibson was DQed from the 60 meter hurdles, though the time he posted before the DQ would not have been enough to qualify anyway.