College Report: Butler track squad has local flavor

Monday, May 9, 2016

INDIANAPOLIS -- Matt Roe likes his cross country and track athletes to come from small schools, and a large percentage of his Butler Bulldog roster has that background.

Of the dozens of different athletes who compete for Roe in both sports at the Big East Conference school, only two hail from the same county -- junior steeplechase standout Colleen Weatherford of Greencastle and freshman hurdler/sprinter Ariel Higgins of South Putnam.

Colleen Weatherford is one of the top contenders for Big East Conference honors this weekend in the 3,000-meter steeplechase.

"It's not rare for us to have people from small high schools and small communities, since we are a small college ourselves," Roe said. "It is unusual for us to have two from the same county."

The Bulldogs are working hard to prepare for this weekend's Big East Championships, which begin Friday in Geneva, Ohio.

Weatherford is a two-time all-conference performer in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, and was also a member of the school's cross country team which placed third in the NCAA Championships in her freshman year.

"She's been a high contributor for us since her first year in both cross country and track," Roe said. "It's particularly impressive that she's been all-Region and all-Big East since she never made the state meet in high school. She has become a really strong cross country runner, which has helped her in track.

Roe said that keeping that string alive is a possibility.

"The Big East Championships are a very high level of competition," Roe said. "Colleen's goal is to ultimately get a qualifying score for the NCAA first round, which is definitely a possibility for her. When we get her to that level, we will re-evaluate our goals for her. Once she gets the confidence and experience from that, she will continue to improve. Being all-league is definitely a possibility."

Weatherford's time in the steeplechase, her best event, was 10:39.00 at the conference championships in her freshman year and a little bit slower last spring at 10:45.86.

For her to improve, she says that improving her landings after jumping over the water hazard will be a key factor.

"In the conference, there is a girl running 10:05 right now [in the 3,000-meter steeplechase] and I'm running 10:35," she said last week after practice. "Hope to get my water jumps down, and that should cut down on some time. In the steeplechase you have to do well with the water jumps. I've had trouble where I land on two feet, and you're supposed to land on one foot.

"If you land on two feet, that adds two or three seconds."

Higgins had a great day last Friday in the Billy Hayes Invitational at Indiana University, qualifying for the 100 hurdles finals with a lifetime best time of 15.66 before finishing ninth with a time of 16.32. She also was a member of the 4x100 relay team which ran a season-best time of 48.91.

Weatherford placed third in the steeplechase at 10:42.04.

Higgins has enjoyed her first year, and even though she didn't really know what to expect she thinks she has done well.

"For the short [100-meter] hurdles, I'm one of the top two right now," she said. "That's mostly my focus this year. I think cutting time and improving depends on my block starts, and I've been to been practicing them a lot lately.

"In the indoor season, I dropped four-tenths of a second in one race," Higgins added. "If those get down like I want, I can cut some more off my times."

While being a taller athlete competing in the hurdles may seem disadvantageous due to the necessity to jump higher to avoid hitting the hurdles, Higgins knows that jumping is just one part of that event.

"Realistically, I would like to be a little taller," she said. "That might make going in between them easier. For the height I am, I think I do the best I can to run well between the hurdles.",

Weatherford is the second member of her family to run at the Division I level, as her older brother Andy excelled in his career at Indiana University.

"My brother wanted to play football, like my cousins, but my parents said he was too scrawny and they thought he'd get too many broken bones," Weatherford said. "They enrolled him in cross country until he could put some weight on, but that didn't happen.

"He decided he liked it and stuck with it, so I decided to do it also and it has worked out really well."

Andy Weatherford went to graduate school and got a master's degree in English. He now works in construction management.

Their cousins are Scott and Steve Weatherford, who both graduated from Terre Haute North.

Scott was a punter at Eastern Illinois for four years, and Steve starred at the University of Illinois before a nine-year career in the National Football League.

"Steve almost went professional in the decathlon," Colleen said. "But he decided to go to the NFL instead."

Roe said that Colleen's success has been above his initial expectations for cross country, but not any more.

"She's not above my expectations now because we know how good she is," Roe said. "She was a big surprise in cross country her freshman year; I thought it would take he more time to get into it. She has been as good as advertised in track."

Roe said that cross country has been more of an emphasis for Weatherford.

"She has more time invested, and she has gained more," he said. "She has definitely put in the work.

"Our goal for cross country this fall is to help the team to get back to the national championships. She will be an important cog in that, and we look for her to give us some great senior leadership."

Weatherford was originally recruited for track.

They didn't really expect me to do any of the races in cross country but just to work out with the team," she said. "In terms of cross country, I've done better than I thought. In track I'd like to do a little bit better but I think I've done better than I expected."

Weatherford majors in marketing, and hopes to someday work in the health care marketing field. She has her first internship this summer.

"Running is mostly about discipline," she said. "If you have the discipline to put in the training, you can do well."

Higgins first considered Butler as an option after Weatherford's decision.

Ariel Higgins

"When she chose to come here it was in the paper, so I always saw that," she said. "We didn't run the same events, but we were always at the same meets. That's where I got running at Butler into my mind, and it kind of fell into place after t hat."

She thinks hurdles are all about technique.

"You have to be able to run fast, but if you have better technique going over the hurdle you can take off a lot more time."

Her expectations were not lofty.

"I didn't know what to expect," she said. "The competition is definitely a lot harder than I'm used to going against. I kind of expected to work a out as hard as they push us.

"I wanted to get times down from high school, and I've definitely done that, so I'm happy with that aspect. Going into the conference, how I compete there will determine how I think I'm doing overall."

Higgins said she "loves it" at Butler, and is double-majoring in criminology and psychology with a goal of either working as a CSI-type investigator or going to law school.

Higgins said there are people with backgrounds similar to her and Weatherford, and others who are from bigger cities and schools.

"Some are from smaller schools like Colleen and me," she said. " The others laugh when I tell them the size of my graduating class because theirs was triple the size of mine."

Having a deeper team is one advantage of being from a bigger school, but Higgins feels lucky to have had the prep training she did.

"I know a lot of my teammates said they had really good people on my team to push them," she said. "I was fortunate to have the coaches I had at South Putnam. They made sure that people ran with me at practice so people could make me better."

College Report

BASEBALL

Greencastle

* Ryan Battin, Jr., Indianapolis -- The outfielder's availability this season has been limited due to a back injury. Battin was a highly-regarded outfielder signed from Olney Central College in Illinois, where he started in left field as a sophomore last spring and batted .339 with 11 stolen bases in 15 attempts.

Cloverdale

* Austin Mannan, Jr., St. Francis -- In his first year at the Fort Wayne school, Mannan has started 22 games and ranks second on the team in hitting at .299 with five doubles, one homer, eight RBI and two runs scored.

Mannan, a catcher, played one year at Lincoln Trail College and one year at Spoon River Junior College. In his senior year at CHS in 2014, he batted .440 with 46 RBI and was Putnam County Player of the Year and Senior of the Year. His junior year he was second-team All-State.

SOFTBALL

South Putnam

* Jenny Thompson, Sr., Indianapolis -- The University of Indianapolis softball team endured a season-ending 5-4 defeat versus Grand Valley State at the NCAA Midwest Regional 1 on Friday. In their second elimination game of the day, the top-seeded Greyhounds nearly erased a late three-run deficit but came one timely hit short of completing the comeback, finishing their season with a 51-5 record.

Thompson was 1-for-4 at the plate in her final game as a Greyhound. Earlier she was named a second-team all-Great Lakes Valley Conference selection at catcher.

Thompson was one of seven seniors who combined to help the Hounds to four NCAA Tournament berths, two Super Regional appearances and a trip to the NCAA Championships in their time wearing the Crimson and Grey. Their combined record since 2013 adds up to an amazing 197-41 (.828), good for the winningest four-year period in program history.

* Emily Dabkowski, Sr., Ball State -- The senior shortstop played a pivotal role in keeping the Cardinals alive in the MAC Tournament, leading the team with 4 RBI and tying for team-high honors with 4 runs scored to earn Mid-American Conference West co-Player of the Week honors for the period of April 25-May 1. She also hit .556 (5-for-9) and drew a pair of walks for a .583 on base percentage.

In Friday's second-game win over WMU, Dabkowski drove herself in for what proved to be the game-winning run with a two-run home run in the bottom of the third inning. She also opened the game with a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the first to drive in Ball State's first three runs in the 6-2 victory.

Dabkowski also scored what proved to be the game-winning run in Saturday's victory over WMU with her first-inning RBI single. Ball State had a pair of runners on base with one out at the time, and Dabkowski sliced a single up the middle which the WMU center fielder misplayed allowing both base runners and Dabkowski to cross the plate and give the Cardinals a 3-0 lead in a game it won 10-2 (5).

Ball State lost 3-2 to Toledo on Saturday, failing to qualify for the MAC tournament.

Dabkowski went 1-for-3 at the plate to finish her career 14th on Ball State's career charts with a .323 batting average.

Dabkowski, who started her career as a walk-on and developed into a first team all-conference player by her junior season, finished her career ranked in the top 10 in program history with 8 sacrifice flies (third), 31 home runs (fourth), a .590 slugging percentage (fifth), 139 runs scored (fifth), 309 total bases (fifth), 137 RBI (seventh) and an .839 stolen base percentage (10th).

The Cardinals finished the season 22-32 overall and 8-16 in the MAC.

* Brooke Boetjer, Sr., Ball State -- In what was essentially a final tune-up before the start of the Summit League Tournament, the IUPUI softball team (17-32, 4-12) split a doubleheader with the University of Missouri-Kansas City (23-24, 10-5) on Friday, dropping game one, 3-2, before nabbing the nightcap, 6-4.

Boetjer was strong in the first game of the doubleheader, throwing nine innings of work while surrendering 10 hits, two earned runs, two walks and recording three strikeouts. She'd also pick up the save in game two by recording the final two outs, a fielder's choice and a lineout, to escape a bases loaded jam.

IUPUI will meet Western Illinois at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at Fargo, N.D., in the Summit League tournament.

SWIMMING

South Putnam

* Sam Gould, Sr., Rose-Hulman -- The standout from South Putnam was recently named the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Most Outstanding Men's Diver after a strong senior season, winning the award for the third time in his four-year career.

Gould completes his career with Rose-Hulman school records for one-meter diving (453.33 for 11 dives) and two three-meter records (474.83 for 11 dives and 317.60 for six dives).

Gould completed a career sweep of four College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin three-meter diving championships. He also competed for the 2015 and 2016 CCIW championship teams at Rose-Hulman that were also ranked in the NCAA Division III top 20.

Gould competed at the NCAA Division III Regional 1 Qualifier in February, placing 14th in three-meter diving with a score of 405.75 points and also earning a top-20 finish in one-meter with 359.60 points.

Gould completed his CCIW career with school records of eight all-conference performances, six conference championships and a career four-year sweep of three-meter championships after earning this year's title.

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