Masters Track: Tim Graf competes with the best, finishes fourth and sixth
From Submitted Reports August 11, 2012 10:52PM
Updated: September 13, 2012 6:18AM
Tim Graf, the local speed guru who trains runners in his Graf Speed Enhancement program at Joliet Junior College, recently competed in the USATF Masters Nationals Championship at Benedictine University and fared well.
Graf ran the 100- and 200-meter events in the 55 to 59 age group. He missed third place in the 200 in a photo finish and was sixth in the 100, missing fifth by .02 seconds.
“The finals in the 100 and 200 were the most loaded events at the Nationals,” Graf said. “The finalists in both events included two defending national champions, one national runner-up and the current world champion. I ran some of the best races of my life and am very pleased with being sixth in the nation in one event and fourth in another.”
Graf’s 100 time was 12.42 seconds and his 200 was 25.12, with third place at 25.10.
New Lenox softball
The New Lenox Girls Softball Association formed a 16U All-Star team composed of home league players to compete in the Lincoln Kankakee Tournament last weekend, and they won the championship with a 5-0 record.
This is the first time the New Lenox team won the tournament. Coaches Chuck Bretz, Sam Bretz and John Singleton guided their players against teams that played in travel tournaments all summer. New Lenox had its All-Stars together for three weeks and played no games before the tournament, which ended with a 13-7 victory over Schererville, Ind.
The New Lenox roster consisted of Domi Coleman, Margaret Kolyvas, Katie Nork, Sarah Bonamino, Jenny Richardson, Nikki Singleton, Gabbi Bretz, Jordan Young, Sam Sayre, Rachel Sterkowitz, Melissa Brown and Lexie Follett.
USF names Barker
Jeffery Barker, a four-time conference coach of the year with seven years of NAIA head coaching experience, was named men’s and women’s cross country and track and field coach at University of St. Francis.
Barker comes to USF from NCAA Division III Fontbonne in St. Louis, where he spent the last year as cross country and track and field coach. He replaces Drew Ludtke, who recently was appointed women’s cross country coach at Wisconsin-Oshkosh after seven years at the helm of the USF cross country and track and field programs.
From 2007 to ’11, Barker enjoyed a successful stint as cross country and track and field coach at Kansas Wesleyan. He was named Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference Coach of the Year on four occasions: women’s cross country in 2008, ’09 and ’10, and women’s indoor track and field in ’11.
Under Barker, Kansas Wesleyan captured two KCAC women’s cross country championships (2009, ’10) and boasted five NAIA All-Americans in women’s cross country, men’s indoor and outdoor track and field and women’s indoor track and field.
In his final season at Kansas Wesleyan in 2010-11, Barker guided women’s cross country to its second straight conference title and NAIA championship appearance as well as the first national top-10 ranking in program history.
