Junior streaks to first-place upset

Heading into Wednesday night’s Individual Time Trials, all eyes were on last year’s Individual Time Trial champion and record-holder, Teter senior Sarah Rieke. Someone forgot to tell Wing It junior Kristi Hewitt.\nHewitt posted a time of 2:36.63, edging out Rieke by .19 seconds. For the men, Black Key Bulls junior Isaac Neff took the top spot with a time of 2:19.75.\n“I’m really happy with my time,” Hewitt said. “I’ve just been working really hard these past two weeks. Series events give you an overall picture of the girls, but the race is what is important.”\nRieke, although she was unable to retain her title, still felt comfortable with her time and the progression of her team with only a couple weeks remaining until the Little 500 race.\n“I just concentrated on spinning as fast as possible and catching the girl in front of me,” \nRieke said. “It’s really hard to look back at last year and see how well I did and strive to get better and better every year. That’s the goal, seeing how hard you can push yourself.”\nNeff faced off in the same heat with three members of last year’s top 13 riders – Cutters senior and defending champion Sasha Land, Dodds House senior Daniel Houchens and Team Major Taylor senior Ali Camera. Neff said being in the same heat as other top riders enabled him to be successful.\n“I feel good about it,” Neff said. “I always watch the guy in front of me and Sasha was in front of me, so I could tell if I was beating him and I wasn’t for the first two laps. I knew I had to keep going faster.”\nITTs, the first series event of the spring season, matched riders of different teams against each other for a four-lap sprint around the track. \nPhi Delta Theta sophomore Nick Sovinski and Cutters freshman Eric Young rounded out the top three men. Sophomore Jennifer Balbach of Kappa Delta finished in third place on the women’s side.\n“It shows who can sprint and who can keep a real fast pace going,” Sovinski said. “It kind of determines a little but the race is still so much more about teamwork, drafting and strategy.”\nMiss-N-Out, the next series event, also helps determine the top individual riders and will take place Saturday morning at Bill Armstrong Stadium.\n“It is a great measure to see how far your training is,” Rieke said. “If you do poorly (in ITTs) it doesn’t mean you can’t be good a couple weeks later.”