Newberg, Ore. – The Boxers competed in the 2024 Northwest Conference Outdoor Track and Field Championships on Friday and Saturday, April 19-20. The meet was hosted at George Fox University. The women's team placed third with 98 points, their best finish in 51 years since 1973 when the women's team won. The men's team placed a close fifth with 67 points, just three points behind fourth place Linfield. 

Top Performers

The women had two individual conference champions: Cris Brethower won the women's steeplechase in a PR of 11:18.24, just four seconds off the school record. Brethower had a conservative first lap with the field before breaking away and putting a 14-second gap on the field. Brethower was seventh in this race a year ago. Emily Rutkowski defended her title in the 400m hurdles, winning the race with a PR of 1:04.60. It was a very tight race between Rutkowski and Emily Brown of Whitworth until the last hurdle, which both women hit. Brown fell while Rutkowski was able to maintain her stride and sprint away to victory. 

On the men's team, the 4x100m relay team of Romel Moreland, Brody Bantolina, Zion Booker and Lucas Dahl won the race with a blazing time of 41.63, a new school record. The men got off to a good start and had very smooth, clean hand-offs, and won the race over Whitworth by 0.23 seconds. 

Henry Tierney was a two-time champion in the 1500m and 800m. On Friday, Tierney won the 800m prelim in 1:52.70. On Saturday, Tierney ran against a competitive field in the men's 1500m, led most of the way by Ryan Stracke of PLU. Coming off the final curve, Tierney put on a surge and the race was three abroad down the homestretch between Tierney, Stracke and defending champion Ben Kerr of Puget Sound. Tierney took the lead in the final stretch of the race and won the event in 3:51.38. Later that day, Tierney came back for the 800m finals in a loaded field - the slowest qualifying time from the previous day being 1:55.30. The top four separated from the group in the first 100m of the race, and Tierney made a big move 300m in to close up the gap. He entered the final lap in fifth place, with the top five all bunched up. On the backstretch Tierney moved into second place behind Larry Trefry of George Fox. Coming off the final turn Tierney and Trefry went head to head down the home stretch, with Tierney winning in 1:53.37 to Trefry's 1:53.46. 

Both Ally Hammond and Annie Berry earned silver medals at the meet. Hammond took second in the women's 100m hurdles, with a time of 14.79, a PR for her and, believe it or not, ANOTHER school record for Hammond this season. She cannot be stopped. She also took second in the long jump with her mark of 5.47m. Kira Hawaaboo of Linfield won the long jump with a leap of 5.96m, and is currently ranked #1 in NCAA DIII. Annie Berry took silver in both the women's 1500m and 800m races on Saturday. In the 1500m, a group of Berry, Ellie Rising of George Fox and Malia Heien on Lewis and Clark were in a close pack for the first half of the race. In the third lap, Rising and Heien pulled away from Berry. In the closing lap, Rising surged away to win, and Berry put on a fierce kick to catch up and surpass Heien at the line, taking second in 4:38.29 to Heien's 4:38.80. Later that day, the trio once again competed against each other in the 800m. Rising ran away with the win, clocking in at 2:11.49, currently the #9 time in DIII. Heien and Berry were running together for the first lap, and coming into the final lap Heien put on a surge that created a five-meter gap on Berry. The gap remained until the last 150m of the race, where a big final push from Berry landed her a very narrow victory over Heien, with Berry clocking in at 2:16.12 and Heien at 2:16.13. 

Three Boxers earned bronze for third place finishes. Lucas Dahl took third in both the men's 100m and 200m dashes, running 10.87 in the 100m and 21.69 in the 200m. Alexander Rhodes of Puget Sound won the 200m with a time of 21.27. Ally Hammond's third medal of the day was her third place finish in the women's 200m, where she ran 25.23, a PR for her. In the women's triple jump, Jonette Singh had a day. Ranked 11th coming into the meet, Singh had a very consistent first round with a 10.50 mark taking her to finals. In finals, she had a huge last jump of 11.07m to take third, just behind second place Kyleigh Archer of PLU who jumped 11.08m, just a quarter of an inch better. 

Also scoring for the Boxers were: 

Kamron Shields, 400m, 6th place (50.28)

Zion Booker, 400m, 8th place (58.00)

Angelica Gatica Gomez, 400m, 4th place (58.23)

Liz Bradley, 1500m, 6th place (4:49.80)

Maddy Hubbs, 1500m, 7th place (4:51.62)

Cris Brethower, 5k, 5th place (18:15.90)

Autumn Gerard, Discus, 6th place (38.54) and Hammer, 6th place (40.23)

Ryder Mackay and Jayden Fordham, high jump, tie for 4th (1.85m)

Jayden Fordham, triple jump, 8th place (12.96m)

Ro'o Sattis-Ellis, long jump, 6th place (6.78m)

Lucas Dahl, long jump, 7th place (6.76m)

Jarod Moren, pole vault, 7th place (3.93m)

Makayla Kraemer, pole vault, 4th place (3.25m)

Women's 4x100m relay of Greta Koegler, Kimmie Vidinah, Ally Hammond, Jonette Singh, 6th place (50.66)

Women's 4x400m relay of Emily Rutkowski, Katrina Brisbois, Annie Berry, Angelica Gatica Gomez, 5th place (4:03.37)

Men's 4x400m relay of Lucas Dahl, Alex Heinze, Zion Booker, Kamron Shields, 5th place (3:22.48) 

Up Next

While many of the Pacific track athletes will wrap up their seasons, some Boxers will continue to compete in the coming weeks chasing school records, PRs, and national qualifying marks. The next meet on the schedule for Pacific is the OSU High Performance Meet hosted by Oregon State on Friday, April 26 and Saturday, April 27. 

For the latest information on Pacific Athletics, make sure to check out GoBoxers.com. You can also find the Boxers on social media at @GoBoxers and @BoxerTFXC, and on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

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