Trio of All-OAC honorees leads Men’s Track and Field on first day of OAC Indoor Championships
By Wes Mayberry
ALLIANCE — Senior Andrew Buderer (Oak Harbor), sophomore Trey Myers (Dayton/Chaminade-Julienne) and freshman Jordan Dean (Euclid/Villa Angela-Saint Joseph) earned All-Ohio Athletic Conference honors to lead the Ohio Northern men's indoor track and field team on the first day of the 2022 OAC Championships meet on Friday at Peterson Field House.
The Polar Bears (25-1 overall) are in fourth place out of 10 teams with 35 points through seven events after the first day of competition. Mount Union leads with 92 points, John Carroll is second with 56 points and Wilmington is third with 43 points.
Buderer, the two-time defending OAC champion in the indoor pole vault, cleared 4.39 meters to place second on Friday for the third indoor All-OAC honor of his career.
"The vault is a big event for us, and Andy has been an All-Conference guy before, so you kind of come to expect him to step up at the conference meet for sure," ONU head coach Jason Maus said.
Myers finished third in the 500 meters, running a time of 1:07.05.
"Trey has been on fire the past couple weeks," Maus said. "This was a big race for him in kind of an off event, and he raced really well."
Dean also posted a third-place finish, running a time of :49.57 in the 400 meters to round out ONU's All-OAC honorees on Friday.
"Jordan has been coming on like fire as a freshman and really stepped up today," Maus said.
The top three finishers in each event earn All-OAC status, and the top eight score team points.
Also scoring points for the Polar Bears on Friday were seniors Luke Shellhaas (Greenville/Versailles) and Patrick Baker (Massillon/Jackson), juniors Hunter Kesler (Oakwood/Paulding) and Brandt Marshall (Hancock County/Cory-Rawson) and sophomore Tommy Vetrovsky (Macedonia/Nordonia).
Shellhaas placed fourth in the pole vault, clearing 4.29 meters.
Kesler finished fifth in the 400, running a time of :50.34.
Vetrovsky was sixth in the weight throw with a personal-best distance of 16.71 meters.
Marshall placed seventh in the pole vault, clearing a height of 4.09 meters.
Baker finished eighth in the 5,000 meters, running a time of 15:15.12.
"We're in a good spot going into the second day," Maus said. "We had some really good things happen today with guys stepping up, and I think we're in a good position to move up."
The final day of the championships gets underway on Saturday with field events beginning at 10 a.m. and running events starting at 2:30 p.m.
