For the first time in Tabor College history, two athletes return home as NAIA All-Americans in the same NAIA Championship Meet. All-Americans Vance Shewey, a freshman from Meade, Kansas, and Toby Penner, a senior from Whitewater, Kansas, along with eight teammates competed in the NAIA Outdoor Track and Field Championship meet held May 25-27 in Gulf Shores, Alabama.
Shewey came into Nationals with the top jump in the NAIA this season at 7′ 0.25″ and finished third as an All-American in with a leap of 6′ 11″.
“Vance Shewey ending up third in his initial national outdoor experience was huge,” head coach Dave Kroeker says. “There is a lot of pressure at nationals, and Vance handled it very well. His future is very bright because he is still hungry for more and willing to put in the effort to go even higher.”
Penner finished the preliminary 400-meter hurdle race fourth with a time of 52.60 seconds on Wednesday. In the finals Friday, he ran even faster at 52.23, finishing fifth as an All-American and bettering his own school record set two weeks before Nationals.
“Two All-Americans is new for a team that I have taken to Nationals,” Kroeker says. “For Toby Penner it was a four-year process. Last year outdoors he was 10th and didn’t make finals, so this year was really sweet. His dedication over four years every day in practice and in the weight room paid off in the final two races of his Tabor career.”
Team finishes
The 4×100-meter relay squad of sophomores Dashaun Sanford, Houston, Texas; Ontario Jones, Fort Worth, Texas; Ali Cannon, Garland, Texas; and Tyke Owens, Frisco, Texas, was disqualified during the race due to miscues in a handoff.
“During the second leg of the relay, an opponent inadvertently knocked the baton out of our runner’s hand and we couldn’t finish the race,” Kroeker says. “They all had worked very hard on all of their handoffs in preparation for this meet and this unusual event was sad for them all.”
Owens also ran in the open 100-meter dash preliminaries, finishing in 16th place with a time of 10.64s. Owens entered the meet ranked 19th overall.
Jacob Skinner, a junior from Yale, Oklahoma, entered Nationals in 34th in the 110-meter hurdles. He ran the preliminaries in 14.80 and came in 19th place, which did not qualify him for the final race.
In discus, Zack Johnson, a sophomore from Colby, Kansas, finished 16th of 27 with a throw of 151′ 9″.
Jordyn Lowrie, a sophomore from Oakley, Kansas, finished 11th in women’s high jump, tying her season best height at 5′ 4.5″.
Tabor College is the Mennonite Brethren college located in Hillsboro, Kansas. The mission of Tabor College, founded in 1908, is to prepare people for a life of learning, work and service for Christ and his kingdom.
