An extra cold January hasn’t seemed to phase the Oberlin track and field team, as their indoor winter season has gotten off to a particularly hot start. Across four meets, one in early December and three in January, the men’s and women’s teams combined have amassed over 108 personal bests and continue to break more records in each meet.
Among many high-level performances, third-year Dane Mentore won North Coast Athletic Conference Athlete of the Week honors after leaping 13.49 meters in the triple jump to take home gold at the Dr. Taraschke Team Challenge on Jan. 31.
The week before, at the Ohio Wesleyan Team Challenge, College fourth-year Amber Borofsky won the 3,000-meter race with a time of 10 minutes, 55.81 seconds — an almost 15-second personal best.
“Everyone’s been putting in a lot of work, and it’s visible,” Fourth-year Ella Wozek said. “We’re coming at it faster and stronger than we’ve [been] in previous years. We’re attacking [personal records], school records, and meet records right off the bat, which is exciting for early in the season.”
At the Dr. Taraschke Team Challenge hosted by Baldwin Wallace University on Jan. 31, Wozek was part of the women’s distance medley relay team that won their race and broke the meet record. Wozek, first-year Mirabel Adams, second-year Samantha Soto, and Borofsky each ran a different distance, either 1200 meters, 400 meters, 800 meters, or 1600 meters, combining for a time of 13:00.55. That time breaks the previous record of 13:03.48 set by Carnegie Mellon University in 2022 by nearly three seconds.
In addition to putting in more work, as Wozek noted, the team is placing more focus on technical skills rather than just pure speed.
“We’ve already developed enough strength and endurance to be able to start focusing more on technical aspects,” fourth-year captain Namu Makatiani said. “We have been in this race model style of practice for longer than we have in the past, and I think that that has helped us get used to that competitive environment again. … It’s made it a lot easier to adjust when it comes time [for] competition because we’ve been doing it for a longer time. Our bodies [have] more muscle memory.”
But, as multiple players mentioned, part of the success of the season has also been because of a mindset shift.
“[The coaches] emphasize a lot that making mistakes is important [for] improvement,” Adams said. “Even if a race wasn’t the best, there’s still a lot to learn from it.”
“The captains … have read this book called ‘Heart and Fear,’” Makatiani said. “It talks a lot about mistakes and learning from the mistakes that you make and growing as an individual and knowing what’s best for you versus what’s best for others.”
Taking risks and not being afraid of failure is part of this too, emphasized Head Coach Ben Wach.
“We’ve been bolder about making mistakes,” Wach wrote in an email to the Review. “And as a result, [we] have been quicker in learning from them.”
Players also credited the team culture as a reason for their early success. Despite track and field being somewhat of an individual sport, the players still support each other in a big way.
“Track is only an individual sport when you’re actually competing,” Makatiani said. “So I feel like outside of that, we are just like any other team. … We function like a regular team that helps build bonds, and you get to learn to be better as an individual as part of the team.”
“It’s on each person individually to show up for themselves,” Wozek said. “But we can’t do our individual best if the whole team isn’t there to support us. I can’t imagine showing up to practice and doing everything by myself. I just wouldn’t be as successful because my teammates wouldn’t be there giving me high fives and cheering me on.”
Today, the team is hosting their first home meet of the season and hope to continue their success while also celebrating pride. The meet is hosted in conjunction with Oberlin’s Athlete Ally chapter. The team is also raising money for the Ohio chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. The meet starts at 5 p.m. in the Heisman Club Field House.
