NCAC Championships Central | DePauw Meet Info
This Week's Outlook: The College of Wooster indoor track and field teams travel to DePauw University to take part in the 2023 North Coast Athletic Conference Indoor Track & Field Championships Friday and Saturday. Field events start Friday at noon. Track events are scheduled to start at 2 p.m. On Saturday, start times are listed at 10 a.m. and 2:15 p.m.
Ticket Information: Admission prices are as follows and must be paid with cash:
- Adults - $5
- Children (18 and under) - $3
- All-Session Pass - $10
- NCAC students (with institution ID) - free
Media Coverage: Fans can follow along through the available live stream and live results webpages. Fans can also follow along the track & field team's Twitter account @WoosterXCTF for live updates.
Looking Back at 2022 NCAC Indoor Championships: Wooster will have quite the challenge to top last year's performance as the men and women combined for its best finish in over 20 years. Each team finished in second place, and the Scots took home All-NCAC honors in 16 events – eight from the women and eight from the men. The women tied with DePauw with 101 points as Oberlin College took first place. Wabash won for the men as Wooster's 88 points edged Wittenberg's 87.
This Year's Favorites: Per the pre-championships balloting by league coaches, Wittenberg is the favorite on the women's side, while Wabash leads a tighter field for the men. Both the Wooster men and women were predicted to finish in fifth. Wittenberg is seeking their second NCAC crown, and Wabash is looking for its fourth straight and ninth overall title.
Heptathlon & Pentathlon Recap: Senior Claudia Partridge scored 2,779 points to win the pentathlon, holding off second place by just 60 points. With her atop the podium, Wooster claimed an individual champion in three of the last six events. Junior Davis Patterson finished second in the heptathlon, breaking his own school record by 458 points. He scored 4,641 points, just 28 points behind the leader. Sophomore Vell Robinson also competed, finishing ninth in the heptathlon.
Throwing Records Away: The women have upped the ante in the field throwing events as Ainsley Wiesner and Evie Sanford continue to output high marks. Wiesner broke the weight throw indoor record in the first meet of the season and last time out upped it 50 feet, 4.5 inches. Sanford reached 40 feet, .5 inches in the shot put earlier this month and needs to add 5.75 inches to tie the school record set back in 1996. Sanford is seeded third in the shot put and Wiesner fourth in the weight throw.
How High Can They Vault: Junior Dylan Garretson has topped out at 16 feet in his pole vaulting this season, smashing his own record from a year ago. At the All-Ohio Championships, he claimed All-Ohio honors for the second time, and finished ahead of the holder of Division III's top mark this season. He and Patterson are the top two seeds entering the event. On the women's side, Morgan Kromer is seeded second having reached a top mark of 10 feet, 11.75 inches this season.
Don't Forget The Jumpers: Wooster is the combined favorites in the high jump. Luke Henke is projected first, while Echo Kidd is seeded fourth. On the women's side, Partridge will hope to carry over her performance from the pentathlon to stay true to her first seed at five feet, six inches. Drew Patterson isn't far behind as the next three jumpers have all reached heights of 5 feet, 4.5 inches.
First-Year Flash: Lorenzo Freeman in his opening meet of the season broke the 60 hurdles record at 8.63 seconds. He recently improved upon that time at the All-Ohio Championships. Now competing in his first NCAC Championships, he takes a second-place seed at 8.47 seconds.
400 Strong: Senior Nick Scherson will look to defend his 400 title after running at a clip of 49.85 seconds last season. He is seeded fifth and will also have to contend with teammate Will McMichael who was a late scratch in last year's meet. McMichael holds the 400 indoor record, improving it to 49.19 seconds this season. He is seeded second behind Wittenberg's Ezekiel Bennett (48.77).
Going the Distance: The men's team of Ben Nichols, Joe Shilts, Cam Ray and Drew Robertson are seeded first in the distance medley relay with a time of 10:45.34. They'll hope to play true to their seeding after last year's medley relay team finished in sixth. Athena Tharenos is separated by .42 seconds from the top seed in the 3,000 meters, while Will Callender clocks in in the top 10 on the men's side.
The Finale: Shilts, Scherson, Patterson and McMichael will look to cap the men's meet off with a win in the 4x400 relay. The foursome already claimed the school record at 3:21.56 earlier this year and enter with a top three seed.