KENOSHA, Wis. - The Ashford University women's track and field team had another strong performance in the young winter season as it competed at the Carthage Opener in the Tarble Athletic Center on Saturday.
The Saints accumulated 95 points to finish second in the team standings with 14 events scored, trailing only host Carthage College. AU's second meet of the winter featured five other schools, all within Wisconsin.
A total of 10 school records (five men, five women) were re-written by the Saints in a stirring winter debut at the Iowa State Holiday Classic. The Ashford women went out on Saturday and shattered two more records in the 600-meter dash and 4x400-meter relay run, respectively.
Saturday's event was the first meet with newly-appointed Head Coach Chris Adams at the helm of both programs. He is now assisted by Tyson Graham and throws specialist Sheena James in a series of moves announced to begin 2010.
"This is a great meet to have right after a long break," Adams said. "It's a smaller meet with a competitive atmosphere and our athletes took advantage of their opportunities. Heather (Ketcham) was part of an impressive group of jumpers, flirting with the NAIA "B" standard, and Chhutani Berry was just as competitive."
Ketcham equaled the winning mark of 1.56m by Sarah Thompson from Carthage, who ironically attended the same Byron High School with the AU freshman. The decisive tie-breaker was from the previous height and Ketcham recorded a miss on her previous attempt.
Berry, of Chicago, was right behind for a third-place effort at 1.51m.
Freshman long jumper Sarah Wenzel brought home 10 points with her first title in college competition, but she still saw plenty of room for improvement after a winning mark of 5.07m. Wenzel broke a longstanding long jump school record in her collegiate debut.
"It's kind of frustrating for me right now because I'm not jumping as far, but I'm going to keep working hard and figure it out," she said. "We had some hard practices and that went a long way in how the team looked out there. We were pretty confident and we placed well."
The 4x400-meter relay record was short lived thanks to Wenzel, Nkemdilim Okwumabua of Rockford, Ill., Ashley Murray of Mason City and Laura Minertz of Sterling, Ill. The same quartet set the record just weeks ago in Ames at the ISU Holiday Classic.
Okwuambua, another freshman of Rockford, Ill., set the 600-meter run record with a time of 1:43.67, surpassing the mark set by sophomore Karissa Turner of Camanche just last season. Turner is rehabbing from undergoing hip surgery in the offseason.
Freshman Ashley Voeltz of Fulton, Ill., threw nearly a half foot further than any of her previous tries, in college or high school, for a new personal record in shot put. She finished second out of 14 individuals with a throw of 11.01m.
Sophomore Natalie Solms of Kissimmee, Fla., finished runner-up in the triple jump at 10.47m.
Murray and junior Erika Jakobsen of Rock Island, Ill., finished second and third, respectively, in the 800-meter run while also competing in the mile run.
