NAMPA, ID – The Northwest Nazarene track team will travel to Monmouth Oregon next week with conference points already in their pocket, thanks to the heptathletes and decathletes. Tuesday was day 2 of the multi-event championships hosted by Northwest Nazarene, and the hometown of Hermiston Oregon took home honors as Eric Zwiefelhofer (Sr. Hermiston, OR) and Laura VonArx (Jr. Hermiston, Or) were the top Crusaders at home.

Zwiefelhofer placed 2nd in the championships and earned All-conference honors as he scored 6173 points to score 8 team points for the men. Eric placed 1st in the 100m (11.48) in event 1 of day 1, and went on to place near the top of almost every event. The deciding race, as it usually does, came down to the 1500m, where he had a semi-comfortable lead over Andy Loscutoff of Western Oregon, but Andy made Eric work to keep hold of his 2nd place running 4:36.50, but Zwiefelhofer ran well enough to claim a 14 point edge, by only tenths of a second to keep 2nd place. NNU's Ben Heidegger (So, Medford, Or) won the 1500m with a time of 4:36.14 and Stuart Montgomery (Jr. Marysville, Wa)  also ran well in the men's 1500, running 4:39.54 to claim 3rd in the event.

On the Women's side, the Heptathletes bested the Crusader men and scored a combined 9 points going into the conference championships next week. Laura Vonarx (Jr. Hermiston Or) placed 5th, Jill Bennett (So, Grants Pass, Or) placed 6th, Lindsay Brady (Sr. Boise, Id) placed 7th and Beth McClam (Sr. Fairfield, Id) placed 12th.

VonArx managed a 70 point swing on day 2 to overcome a 22 point deficit to Bennett after day 1. Bennett began the day with one of the better long jumps in the competition 5.21m (17'-1”), but VonArx kept it close and made up the difference in the javelin and then stayed within 3 seconds of Bennett in the women's 800m running a personal best 2:35.77. Lindsay Brady flexed her sprint muscle in the 2 day competition placing 2nd in the 200m (26.72) to SPU's Crystal Sims in significant winds and then ran to a 1st place finish in the women's 800m to finish the day. Brady went out fast with the leaders, and at the 600m mark into the race ended all doubt with a convincing last 200m running 2:19.30. Beth McClam also nearly pulled an 800m place changing upset beating WOU's Ali Worthen by 10 seconds and almost eliminating Ali's 150+ point lead, but Beth's 2:33.08 was 16 points shy of overtaking her for 11th place.

The Crusaders have Graduation ceremonies this Saturday and will continue to train and then travel next Thursday to Monmouth Oregon for the rest of the GNAC Championships. Competition begins Friday with some finals and prelims, followed by Saturday's competition of all finals.