MOUNT VERNON— Placing in three events, Central College men's track & field athlete Justin Wimbish (junior, Glendale, Ariz., Apollo HS) earned 20 points for the Dutch on their way to a fourth-place finish.

In the 11-team field, Central had 100 points in a fourth-place effort. Simpson College earned the team trophy with 137 points.
           
"It was a good second meet of the year," coach Joe Dunham said. I felt like we were able to get a lot of things accomplished."

Individually, Wimbish was second in the long jump with a leap of 22 feet, 8 inches. He set a personal best in the 200-meter dash, placing third and clocking in at 22.26 seconds. He partnered with Caleb Jennings (junior, Spirit Lake), Blake Morgan (junior, Story City, Roland-Story HS) and P.J. Carey (junior, Ankeny) to place third in the 4x100-meter relay in a time of 43.08 seconds.

"Justin had an incredible day," Dunham said. "He's really developing nicely."

Morgan was fourth in the 400-meter dash (50.92), Jennings was sixth (51.26) and Carey was seventh (51.51).

"Overall, our sprinters had a nice day," Dunham said. "I think the warm weather really helped them."

Prepping for a trip to compete in California next weekend, Mark Fairley (junior, Dubuque) won the 1,500-meter run in 4:01.84. Tanner Rathje (junior, Marion, Linn-Mar HS) was third in 4:05.06.

"Mark had a great day, especially coming off being sick," Dunham said. "It's a good tune up for him before running the steeplechase in California next weekend."

In the 3,000-meter steeplechase at Cornell, Nick Cooper (freshman, Sheboygan, Wis., South HS) was second in 10:23.44 and Jordan Toomey (sophomore, Runnells, Southeast Polk HS) was third in 10:25.74.

"It was the first time for both running the steeple," Dunham said. "They stuck to the race plan and started off really conservative before building into the race.

Their second half of the race was faster than the first, which is really hard to do in that race."
           
Next weekend, Central will send athletes to the Bryan Clay Invitational in Azusa, California as well as the Jim Duncan Invitational in Des Moines on the campus of Drake University on Friday and Saturday.