Bates College junior Justin Easter of Jay, Maine, has produced the College’s second national champion in as many days, winning the 3,000-meter steeplechase today at the NCAA Division III track and field championships at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn. Senior hammer thrower Jaime Sawler of Stratham, N.H., won his second career national championship on Thursday, capturing the hammer throw.

Easter, the top seed in the steeplechase headed into the national championships, won the race with a time of 9:02.02. He defeated second-place finisher Ryan Reed of Pacific Lutheran College by just over three-tenths of a second. Easter jumped out to an early lead during the first lap, then fell back into the pack for the next three laps. With about a mile to go, he returned to the front of the pack, stretching his lead to about 15 meters. Easter held off a hard-charging Reed to earn his first national championship. He had finished seventh and third in his previous NCAA steeplechase races in 2000 and 2001.

Sawler, the top seed in the hammer entering the meet, won Thursday’s competition with a throw of 188 feet, six inches. He defeated runner-up Justin Minor of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater by seven-and-a-half feet.

Sawler completed the 2002 season undefeated against Division III competition, also winning the 35-pound weight during the indoor track and field season. Sawler is the third athlete in Bates history to win multiple NCAA titles. He joins Wayne Pangburn (class of 1966), who won the NCAA College Division championships in the hammer in 1965 and 1966, and John Fitzgerald (class of 1987), who won the indoor 5,000-meters in 1986 and the outdoor 10,000-meters in 1987.

Bates has now won 12 individual national track and field titles all time. Easter’s is the eighth outdoors and the fourth under current head coach Al Fereshetian. He is the first Bobcat runner to win a national title since Fitzgerald’s in the 10,000. Bates’ previous four titles were won by field athletes, including Sawler’s two.

Behind the two championship performances, Bates scored 20 points, the most-ever by a Bobcat team. They were eighth overall and second among New England teams. The University of Wisconsin-Lacrosse won the meet with 64 points, while Wheaton College was the top New England team in fifth place with 29 points. The eighth-place finish was also the school’s best-ever finish at the NCAA outdoor track championships and matches the second-highest in any championship. The 1977 men’s cross country team’s sixth place is the college’s standard as a member of Division III, while the 1996 women’s soccer team also finished in a tie for eighth.

Junior Kelley Puglisi of Scotia, N.Y., earned her first career All-America honor May 25 by finishing third in the 1,500-meter run. Puglisi, who entered the NCAA championships as the 11th seed, finished third with a school-record time of 4:37.92. She broke her own record, set at the New England Division III championships on May 7, by nine-hundredths of a second. Puglisi was the top finisher from New England in the event. She placed seven seconds behind champion Missy Buttry of Wartburg (Iowa) College. Puglisi is the fifth woman in Bates outdoor track and field history to earn All-America honors and the first in the 1,500-meter run. Her third-place finish was the highest by a Bobcat woman at the championships since Heather Bumps (class of 1997) placed third in the javelin in 1996.

The six points scored by Puglisi helped the Bobcats to a six-way tie for 38th place. The finish was the highest for the Bates women since 1996, when they finished in 37th place.

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Bates College senior captain Jaime Sawler of Stratham, N.H., capped off the final indoor meet of his career by winning 35-pound weight throw at the NCAA Division III indoor track and field championships at Ohio Northern University in Ada, Ohio.

Sawler won the meet with a throw of 64 feet, 1.75 inches (19.55 meters). The second seed in the event, he threw 15 inches further than runner-up Noah Eschenbach of the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point who had a distance of 62-10.5 (19.16 meters). Sawler completed the 2001-02 indoor track and field season undefeated against NCAA Division III competition.

Sawler is the 10th track and field national champion in Bates history and the fourth indoors. He is the first Bates national champ since 1998, when Bill McEvila ’99 won the 35-pound weight at Brandeis University. This is the second national champion and 22nd All-America award in 17 years for Bates throwing coach Joe Woodhead.

“This feels great,” said Sawler after the event. “Coach Woodhead was a big key to success. He is the best coach in Division III, as far as I am concerned. It feels good to win this for myself and for him too.”

Some of the nation’s best track and field teams will be showcased at Bates, this year’s host of the New England Division III men’s track and field championships.

Seven athletes currently ranked first or second in the most recent NCAA Division III national rankings will appear at the meet. Among the top-ranked athletes is Massachusetts Institute of Technology senior Sean Montgomery in the 800-meter dash. MIT, the 2000 New England team champions and 2001 runners-up, also boasts the top distance medley relay in the nation. Seniors Jason Edwards of Eastern Connecticut State University and Raheim Greenidge of Wheaton College are the top-ranked competitors in the long jump and triple jump, respectively, while Keene State College junior Mark Miller, the defending New England champion, is No. 1 in the 1,500-meter run.

Bates will be represented by senior Jaime Sawler, the defending New England champion in the 35-pound weight throw. Sawler is undefeated this season and ranked second in the nation. Other returning champions are MIT junior Craig Mielcarz in the pentathlon, U.S. Coast Guard Academy senior Jason Haag in the pole vault, MIT junior Brian Hoying in the high jump, MIT senior Dan Feldman in the 3,000-meter run, and Williams College junior Michael Sheehan in the 600-meter run. Williams was the 2001 New England team champion, finishing just ahead of MIT.

The New England Division III meet begins at noon on Friday, Feb. 15, with the pentathlon. On Saturday, the 35-pound weight kicks off the meet at 10 a.m., while the trials for the first running event, the 55-meter dash, begin at 11:30 a.m.