Men's track and field team competes at first day of 2010 MIAA Field Day

The Olivet College men's and women's track and field teams participated in the first day of the 2010 Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MIAA) Field Day today at Alma College's Bahlke Field. Highlighting the first day of action was Heather Nicklaw (Springport), who won the high jump and becomes the first female athlete in school history to win an event at the conference championships.

Nicklaw along with Hope's Kara Vandeguchte and Calvin's Rebekah Van Dyk cleared the bar at 1.62 meters/5'3¾". Nicklaw was declared the conference champion by virtue of needing two attempts to clear the bar, while the other two needed all three tries.

In the preliminaries of the 400-meter dash, Sarah Caldwell (Bronson) had the fastest time at 58.92 seconds. In addition, Ellen Schulz (Freeland) was eighth fastest at 1:02.99 and will join her in Friday's finals. Both recorded season-best times. Olivia Yarrell (East Lansing/Sexton) won her heat and had the second quickest overall time (12.92 seconds) to advance to the finals in the 100-meter dash.

Caldwell and Yarrell will compete in tomorrow's finals in the 200-meter dash of the 200-meter dash. They were fifth (26.57) and seventh (26.96), respectively in the preliminaries.

For the men, James Williams (Battle Creek/Central) will run in the finals in the 100-meter dash after posting the sixth fastest time (11.13 seconds) in the preliminaries. He will also be in the finals of 200-meter dash, as he was seventh (23.06) in the prelims.

In the field events, Tim Esper (New Hudson/Walled Lake North) was one centimeter shy of scoring points in the javelin. His had a 44.83 meter toss to finish in ninth-place.

The second and final day of the Field Day gets under way tomorrow with field events starting at 10 a.m. and running events at 1:30 p.m.