Doane College Sports
Throwers pace Doane at NAIA Championships
/ 0
- Details
- Published on 29 May 2012
- Written by Andy McCallister
- Hits: 1374
MARION, Ind. — With a roster of 17 throwers at the national meet, it shouldn’t have surprised anyone that the Doane track and field team scored some points in those events at the NAIA National Outdoor Championships last week.
But all told, the throwers took home seven of the 11 All-America plaques earned by Doane at the meet.
Zack Lindsley earned All-America honors for the third consecutive year in the discus, taking the highest finishing place of the meet for Doane with a third in that event.
Lindsley, a junior who equaled his finish from last year’s meet after placing sixth as a freshman, recorded a best toss Friday of 173 feet, 11 inches.
He came back Saturday to add an eighth in the shot put with a 55-2 effort.
“Zack stepped up this week,” Doane head coach Ed Fye said. “He was as confident here as he was at indoor, and did what he’d done all year.”
Also on Saturday, Tiger women Ashton Henderson and Carly Henry placed fourth and fifth in the discus Saturday with nearly-identical efforts of 147-9 and 147-8.
Henry, a freshman who won state high school shot put and discus titles just a year ago, uncorked her big throw in the final round to pull within an inch of her teammate.
“They’ve both had a pretty tough year, so it was nice to see them end up this way,” Fye said. “It didn’t seem like they ever got to where their ability level was during the season, but this was a great accomplishment for them today against some great competition.”
Doane added more throws points in the men’s javelin, where Crete’s Micah Marvin closed his collegiate career with an All-America plaque for sixth.
Marvin produced a personal best toss of 205-1 in a competition that featured four Doane men. Andrew Nielsen, the Doane football team’s placekicker last fall, also had a personal record on the way to eighth at 202-3.
Fye remarked that Ben Wolfe and Mitch Magrini, who also hurled the pointed sticks for Doane in Marion, made it four Tigers in the top 15 of the national field.
“We had two guys over 200 feet, and that’s never happened for us before,” Fye said. “They’re always so competitive against each other in practice that it made them better every time they threw.”
Whitney Collins rounded out the scoring for the Tiger throwers, landing an eighth-place finish in the hammer throw Thursday at 162-6.
“Whitney pulled out a big throw at the conference meet and again this week,” Fye said. “She came through in her senior year and ended up as an All-American.”
For more on Doane's week at the NAIA Championships, see the May 30 print and E-edition of The Crete News.