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’ Russell Street track hosted its first-ever New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC ) track and field championships April 27-28 and four Bobcat individuals and one relay team won conference titles. The Bates men finished in fourth place with 88 points, while the women were tenth with 30 points.

Junior Justin Easter of Jay, Maine, led the way for the men. Easter won the NESCAC title in the 3,000-meter steeplechase for the third year in a row, missing an NCAA automatic qualifying time by less than half a second with a time of 9:08.7. Easter also anchored the Bobcats’ winning distance medley relay, coming from behind to defeat the team from Bowdoin by nine-hundredths of a second. Also on the relay team were first-year runners Joel Anderson of New Brighton, Minn., Greg Whelan of Tacoma, Wash., and Andrius Staisunias of Panevezys, Lithuania. Senior Jaime Sawler of Stratham, N.H., also won a NESCAC title, staying undefeated this year in the hammer by successfully defending his conference title. Classmate Greg Hurley of Arlington, Mass., earned two all-conference honors by placing second in the hammer -improving his chances at making the NCAAs with a throw of 175-0 – and third in the javelin. Anderson captured a second All-NESCAC honor by taking third in the 5,000-meters. Junior Matt Ondra of New Tripoli, Pa., placed second in the pole vault for the second year in a row to earn a spot on the All-NESCAC team.

Twenty of the Bobcat women’s 30 points came from their two event champions. Junior Kelley Puglisi of Scotia, N.Y., came from behind in the final 100 meters to win the 1,500-meter run with a time of 4:48.17, 0.34 seconds faster than the second-place finisher from Bowdoin. Puglisi entered the meet ranked fourth in the conference. Sophomore Liz Wanless of Belleville, Ill., improved her NCAA provisional mark and school record in the shot put by three-quarters of an inch with a toss of 42-11.5, winning the event by half an inch. Senior captain Anya Belanger of Milbridge, Maine, and sophomore Sarah Tressell of Newtown, Pa., helped Bates earn six points in the high jump. Each leaped 4-11, with Belanger earning All-NESCAC honors with her tie for third, while Tressell tied for seventh by taking more attempts to clear the height. The Bobcats also got points in the steeplechase from sophomore Beth Pagnotta of Hookset, N.H., who finished 6th with an NCAA provisional time of 11:41.55, and rookie Karissa Carey of East Bridgewater, Mass., who took eighth in the hammer throw after entering the meet seeded 10th.

For complete results from the NESCAC championships, visit the meet’s home page at http://abacus.bates.edu/sports/mtrack/nescac2002.