SFU pulls off four titles on the track at conference championship

By Bryan Scott

Both the men’s and the women’s Simon Fraser track and field teams were in Nampa, Idaho last week to compete in the 2013 Great Northwest Athletic Conference championships.

As expected the women’s distance medley team consisting of Helen Crofts, Lindsey Butterworth, Michaela Kane, and Chantal Desch were spectacular. They demolished everyone else in the field and finished with a time of 11:47.86, beating the second-place Alaska Anchorage by nine seconds. They
are now ranked number two in the entire NCAA division II.

The women’s 4×400-metre relay team also won their event. The team is similar to the long distance medley, but Sarah Sawatzky ran instead of Butterworth. They broke their own meet record from 2011, with a time of 3:48.36. Butterworth was busy in her individual mile race; she was SFU’s
first individual champion of the weekend. She beat her 2012 championship time by nine seconds, with a time of 4:58.09.

Crofts was another member of the Clan that was able to repeat her championship , winning the 800-metre race after also winning it in the 2011 season. Her time was 2:12.29. Kane and Sawatzky finished second and fourth respectively in the same race.

Andrea Abrams was impressive in the 60-metre hurdles, finishing third in the event with a personal best time of 8.88. On the men’s side, Stuart Ellenwood had the best performance finishing the 400-metre in a time of 50.23. Cameron Proceviat ran his best indoor 800-metre and finished seventh overall.

In the field, Kim Neville- Rutherford came in fourth place in high jump with a jump of 1.61 metres, and Jade Richardson finished sixth in shot put. The only man in the field for SFU was Luca Molinari who placed ninth in the weight throw event with a toss of 14.01 metres. “This weekend was extremely successful for us, and we had a lot of athletes run personal
best times,” said Head Coach Brit Townsend in a press release after the championships. “That is all we can ask for from our athletes, and the coaches and I are very happy.”