mstetson@idahopress.com
NAMPA – Oh Joy!
Northwest Nazarene's Joy Warrington stole the show Saturday at the Great Northwest Athletic Conference indoor championships, sweeping the women's throws with a pair of school-record efforts at the Idaho Center's Jacksons Track.
“It feels wonderful, I think I'm still in shock,” the sophomore from Colorado Springs, Colo., said. “Honestly, I'm still very excited.”
The day started with plenty of excitement for Warrington in the shot put where she had the season's best mark by four feet at 44 feet, 8.75 inches.
She blew that away with a meet and school record throw of 45-9.25 to win by over three feet, besting Central Washington's Torrie Self (42-7.5), with NNU's Carly Dranginis taking third (41-8) and earning All-GNAC honors. Warrington's throw also was a national meet provisional qualifying mark.
Warrington says the shot-put win proved most satisfying.
“I've put in a lot of hard work over there, struggled, a lot of mental battles going on over there, so to come out today and perform to the best of my ability, it feels awesome,” she said, adding that she also had two goals in the event.
“One, just go out here and compete, PR, and second was to get my name up higher on that (nationals) provisional list, and I did both today.”
Then it just got better.
Entering the weight throw with a mark just over 2 feet short of Self's season best (51-0.75), Warrington rose to the challenge for a second GNAC title with a winning throw of 49-10.5, another school-record effort.
“It was cool. I didn't know how far back I was in the weight, I didn't look at any numbers or anything, but I knew that I was further back,” she said. “But it was good, I love to compete and I showed my competitive edge today and it was good.”
Warrington's win led a barrage of weight-throw success for NNU as Dranginis was fourth (45-9.25), Erika McCarthy fifth (45-3.75), Shayna Shute seventh (42-8.25) and Alicia Hedrick eighth (39-2.5), giving the Crusaders 22 points team points in that event to help NNU finish third.
Seattle Pacific won the women's team title and Western Oregon the men's. The Crusader men were fourth.
While Warrington had the Crusaders only wins, Maurus Hope provided a runner-up finish and another school record with time of 49.25 seconds in the 400 meters.
“That was nice,” said Hope, who earned All-GNAC honors but just missed repeating as the event champ as Western Oregon's Matt Kaino edged him out in 49.17. “Coach told us just to give our all we had and that's what I did.”
The other highlights on the day came from freshmen Melissa Grammer and Cameron Colby and in the women's and men's 60s, respectively, and Barak Watson in the mile and 5,000.
Grammer set a new Crusader record of 8.02 in the prelims, then took fifth in the finals in 8.05, and Colby set a school record of 8.19 in the prelims, finishing 11th.
And Watson earned All-GNAC honors, placing second in the mile in 4:15.44, and third in the 5K in 15:05.67.
