DELAWARE, Ohio -- Following a solid showing on day one, the Kenyon College men finished the North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) Outdoor Track & Field Championship in seventh place at the end of the two-day event.
The Owls scored 58 points in the eight-team field, collecting 32 on day two, 23 on day one, and three through Josh Greville in the NCAC decathlon. Denison University clinched the team title with 162 points. Wabash College (129) and Oberlin College (118) rounded out the podium placements, while Wittenberg University (114), DePauw University (105), and The College of Wooster (97.50) placed above the Owls. Ohio Wesleyan University, the event host, placed eighth with 34.50 points.
A pair of individual championships highlighted Kenyon's day-two showing. Tapiwa Gono Phiri and Riley Orth successfully defended their 2022 NCAC crowns, accounting for most of the Owls' day-two points.
Orth started the day by defending his conference crown in the shot put. The junior recorded a 15.47-meter (50-9 ¼) toss on his second attempt, clearing second place by 0.03 meters (1 ¼). The distance was a career-best for Orth and a season-best for the Owls, and it narrowly missed matching the Kenyon record of 15.48 meters (50-9 ½). Last season, Orth won the event with a 14.81-meter (48-7 ¼) throw.
On the oval, Gono Phiri produced Kenyon's other event win. The sophomore sprinter paced the field in the 100-meter dash, clocking in at 10.77 seconds. It was a photo finish for Gono Phiri as his winning margin came down to two-thousandths of a second. He added 10 points to Kenyon's total by edging out Denison's Jaylin Epps 10.767 to 10.769. Last season, Gono Phiri finished first with a time of 10.82. The Ndola, Zambia, native added four more points with a fifth-place finish in the 200 after crossing the finish line in 22.34 seconds.
Jack Burczak, Collin Witt, and Greville were the other Owls who added points in individual events. Burczak, a senior, bagged three points with a sixth-place showing in the 5000-meter race. He covered the distance in 15:25.58, a career-best time in the 5000. Greville and Witt each garnered an eighth-place, one-point finish. Greville, a first-year, joined Orth as Kenyon's only scorer in field events, posting a career-long leap of 12.72 meters (41-8 ¾) in the triple jump. Witt, a junior, clocked in at 50.66 in the 400-meter race.
Both of Kenyon's relay teams contributed points. In the 4x100-meter iteration, the quartet of Witt, Greville, Jonathan Turner, and Gono Phiri placed seventh with a time of 45.96. The 4x400 squad of Witt, Gono Phiri, Turner, and Robert Enslein finished eighth at 3:34.21, a season-best for the Owls.
