April 8, 2001

Naperville, Ill. - Senior hurdler Barry Somerville (St. Charles, Ill./St. Charles) turned in two top-four finishes to help the men's track and field team to a eighth-place finish of 41 points at the Chicagoland Championships hosted by North Central College on Saturday.

"It was a great job on the men's side," head track and field coach Jim Knoedel said. "I was real encouraged by some of the performances."

Host North Central captured the men's title with 171 points followed by Lewis University, 114, St. Joseph's College, 95.50, Carthage College, 79, Elmhurst College, 66.50, Wheaton College, 58, College of DuPage, 41.50, UIC, 41, Univ. of Chicago, 36, Loyola University, 30, Chicago State University, 28, North Park University, 24.50, Harper College, 11, Oakton Community College, 10, Concordia-River Forest, 9, Benedictine University, 4.

Somerville raced to a blazing second-place finish of 54.34 in the 400-meter hurdles and added a fourth-place mark of 15.12 in the 110-meter high hurdles.

"Barry did a great job for his first time running hurdles this season," Knoedel said. "With a little more experience, Barry can improve from a second to a second and a half."

The men's team also received solid performances from senior Neto Alexander (Port-of-Spain, Trinidad/Queen's Royal College), Rich Daubert (Arlington Heights, Ill./Hersey), Joe Marren (Chicago, Ill./Mount Carmel) and Jon White (Chicago, Ill./St. Rita).

Alexander placed third in the 100-meter dash with a time of 10.85 while Daubert (4:03.51) and Marren (4:04.27) placed fourth and fifth respectively in the 1,500-meter run. White added a fifth-place finish of 43-feet, 5 ¾ inches in the triple jump event.

On the women's side, sophomore Monieka Thompson's (Chicago, Ill./Steinmetz) first-place finish of 2:13.65 in the 800-meter run helped propel the Flames to a 10th-place finish of 25 points.

Lewis University won the overall title with 161.50 points followed by North Central College, 133.50, Carthage College, 121, Loyola University, 90, St. Joseph's College, 70, Wheaton College, 52.50, Northwestern University, 45, North Park University, 29.50, College of DuPage, 27, UIC, 25, Elmhurst College, 18, Harper College, 16, Univ. of Chicago, 14, Benedictine University, 10, Concordia-Il, 3, Olivet Nazarene University, 1, St. Francis, 1.

"Monieka did a great job on the 800-meter run against a very difficult wind," Knoedel said. "That was one of her best-ever performances."

Sophomore Amy Fehrman (St. Charles, Ill./St. Charles) added a fifth-place finish of 5-feet, ½ inches on the high jump.

UIC will be back in action this Saturday at the Lee Calhoun Memorial Meet hosted by Monmouth College.