Track teams tune up for All-Ohios

Ladies track tied Denison University for fourth place in the 10-team Bob Shannon Invitational in Granville on Saturday, marking their best finish at the meet in three years.

Ellen Corcoran ’17, Mollie O’Leary ’17, Rosa Rumora ’19 and Quinn Harrigan ’19 claimed first in the distance medley event, in which the four athletes run three, one, two and four laps around a 400-meter track, in that order.

Also delivering standout performances for the Ladies were Samantha White ’16, who earned second in the one-mile run with a time of 5:27 and Molly Hunt ’18, who crossed the finish line eight seconds after White to secure third.

In the shot put, a throw of 11.43 meters by Funmilayo Lawal ’18 broke a 27-year-old Kenyon record.

On the men’s side, Nat Fox ’16 acted as the Lords’ standard-bearer, finishing fifth out of 18 entrants in the 3,000-meter run with a time of 9:19. Overall, the Lords finished last out of 10 teams. Fellow seniors Alex Benthem de Grave and Jon Levitt contributed several points to the Lords’ team score with quality runs in the 60-meter hurdles and the mile, respectively.

Competing simultaneously in the All-Ohio heptathlon, Colton Orr ’18 finished fourth in a field of six; his score will count toward Kenyon’s tally at the All-Ohio Championships, which the Lords and Ladies will be attending on Saturday at Otterbein University (Westerville, Ohio).

— Gabe Brison-Trezise

Kenyon diving kicks off championship

Kenyon swimming and diving is competing at Denison University in the North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) championships this week from Wednesday through Saturday. While Kenyon has won more conference championships (23) than their host, the Denison University Big Red men and women have won the past seven conference championships.

The championship started Wednesday night with the men’s 3-meter diving preliminaries and finals. Kenyon brought sophomore walk-on Josh Yuen-Schat, Ryder Sammons ’19 and Brandon Roman ’16, who took 14th, eighth and seventh, respectively, in the preliminary round of 11 dives. Advancing to the finals, Sammons and Roman took ninth and sixth. Roman’s score of 353.80 and Sammons’s of 305.45 will contribute 68 points to the meet — in which the Lords as of Wednesday night were second behind Denison’s score of 96.

“I think personally I brought good energy and enthusiasm to the meet which helped other people do well,” Sammons said, slightly disappointed with his current results. The first year stands on the cusp of qualifying for diving regionals, or “zones,” as he has one qualifying score on the 1-meter, but lacks a second. His next chance to score will come from either the men’s one-meter event on Friday or from the Kenyon Fast Chance Invitational on Feb. 20 where he hopes to join teammates Roman, Maria Zarka ’16 and Madeline Carlson ’19 in the regional meet, at which divers may qualify for nationals.

Diving Coach Andy Scott has big plans for Carlson, whose degree of difficulty (DD) on dives is not as high as that of her peers, but whose consistency Scott calls impressive. “She’s very consistent, she’s going to be six, six-and-a-half on everything,” Scott said. Lower degrees of difficulty “put you behind the eight ball before the meet ever starts because if you score the same as everybody else and they have a bigger DD, you lose.”

Kenyon will likely need the points earned from Kenyon diving as they hope to close the gap with Denison during the conference meet by Saturday.