Davis ’07 Wins 5,000M National Indoor Championship

Olivia DrakeMarch 16, 20073min

Posted 03/16/07
Competing in the 5,000M event in the NCAA Division III Indoor Track Championships for the third year in a row, Ellen Davis ’07 completed her rise from eighth in 2005, to fourth in 2006, and finally national champion in 2007 at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Ind. March 10.

Her winning time of 16:43.73 eclipsed the team record she set a year ago (16:46.61) when she entered the NCAAs with the fastest qualifying time in the country.

This race is equivalent to 3.1 miles.

Davis, pictured at far left, came into the event as the number four seed but ran away from the field, leaving second-place Shauneen Garrahan of Amherst 7.5 seconds behind. With 10 team points courtesy of Davis’ top finish, Wesleyan came in tied for 16th among 56 scoring teams at the NCAAs in 2007.

A three-time indoor track All-American, Davis also has two All-America performances in cross country to her credit, including a 9th-place finish in 2006.

Davis is Wesleyan’s second national female indoor track champion in the last four years. She joins Jenna Flateman ’04 who won 55-meter dash title in 2003 and was a four-time All-American in the event.

Davis’ victory is seen in the online video http://www.rose-hulman.edu/sports/ncaatrack/pages/5000womenweb.mov.

The next track meet for Wesleyan is the outdoor Trinity Invitational at Trinity College in Hartford on March 31.
 

By Brian Katten, sports information director. Photo provided by Rose-Hulman.