Area trio provisionally qualify for NCAA III nationals
Three area college athletes nailed down NCAA provisional qualifiers in the Wartburg Selection Invitational in Waverly, Iowa.
Princeton’s Evan Holschbach, a junior sprinter for Augustana, took third in the 200 meters with a time of 23.05. Teammate Wes Jackson, a senior from Mineral, placed fifth in the pole vault at 15-5. Both efforts were good enough to qualify for the NCCA finals.
Holschbach’s old Princeton Tiger teammate, Scott Howard of the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, also hit the provisional qualifier in the pole vault at 15-11. The automatic qualifier is 16-6 1/2.
Howard set the UWP school indoor record at 16-1 3/4 and won the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference title. He finished sixth at nationals.
Holschbach also ran on the Vikings’ fourth-place 400 relay (43.32). Other area athletes competing for the Vikings include Princeton’s Angela Baumgartner (sprints), Laura Luloff (distance), Jeff Scoma (hurdles), Alex Hartz (jumps) and Ladd’s John Thompson (pole vault).
• Katherine Slevin (St. Bede) can call herself a national champion. The former Lady Bruin took part in the Illinois Wesleyan Titans’ drive to the NCAA Division III national championship as a distance runner. The IWU sophomore is the Titans’ top 5000-meter runner in the early going of the outdoors season with a time of 20:46.52 in last week’s DePauw Invite.
• Andrew Foote (St. Bede) and Jordan Inskeep (Princeton) competed for North Central College in the April 6 Chicagoland Intercollegiate Champion-ships at the Cardinals home track in Naperville. The Cardinals topped the 20-team field. Foote placed 10th in the discus (136-7) and Inskeep was 10th in the 110 hurdles (16.56).
• Three Bureau County athletes are competing for the St. Ambrose Bees in Davenport, Iowa. Fresh-man Lauren Gunawan (Neponset, Bureau Valley) has cleared 2.6 meters for the St. Ambrose Bees. Senior Alex Flores of Ladd has clocked times of 4:28.35 in the 1500 meters and 17:14.6 for the 5000 meters. Sophomore Danny DeVenney has turned in a 17.01 in the 110 hurdles and a 1:07.38 in the 400 hurdles.
Softball
Monmouth College seniors Kristin Bickett and Anna Coutts will drive right by their native Bureau County with the Fighting Scots softball team this weekend, heading to Janesville, Wis., for the Midwest Athletic Conference Crossover Tournament. But they’ll be sure to drop by for a taste of Rips Chicken in Coutts’ hometown, Ladd, on the way back through.
The Fighting Scots dropped a doubleheader (6-5, 13-6) to Lake Forrest College in their first conference action on Sunday. They split Wednesday’s double-dip with arch-rival Knox in a pair of 4-3 games.
The top two teams in each division advance to the conference tournament May 2-3 at the site of the South Division winner. Monmouth plays in the South along with Lake Forrest, Knox, Illinois College and Grinnell
Coutts, a senior outfielder, has started all 15 games she has played for the Fighting Scots. She is batting .298 with 14 hits in 47 at-bats and has scored 10 runs.
Bickett struggled early, but has come on strong. The senior catcher/DP is now batting .317 (13-41) with 8 RBIs after starting the season in a 1-14 slump. She had two hits in each game against Knox and now is batting .461 since getting a tattoo in memory of her grandfather, who passed away shortly before Monmouth’s season-opening trip to Tucson, Ariz.
• Former Bureau Valley standout Rachel White-side, a 2007 BCR Co-Player of the Year, has started seven games as a freshman for the Central College Dutch (14-11) in Pella, Iowa. She is batting .211.
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