The Ithaca College athletics department may need to invest in a bigger trophy case. Thanks to a pair of stellar performances this past weekend, the Bombers collected their 40th and 41st individual national championships.
Graduate student Katherine Pitman not only won the third national title of her career in the pole vault at the NCAA Division III Indoor Championships, she set the all-time Division III indoor record when she cleared a height of 4.28 meters. With the victory, she became just the fifth Ithaca College athlete to win three individual national championships.
After securing the national championship by being the only competitor to clear 4.00 meters, Pitman focused on all-time mark. She eventually cleared 4.28 meters, breaking her own mark of 4.27 meters, set just one week earlier.
Her performance helped the Bombers finish in seventh place in the team competition, the second-best mark in school history.
Pitman was also named The United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association’s NCAA Division III Indoor Field Athlete of the Year.
The college’s storied wrestling program added to their legacy when Ben Brisman ’20 took home the 141-pound title at the NCAA Championships. Brisman won the wrestling program’s 12th individual title when he beat top-seeded Brett Kaliner of Stevens Institute of Technology 10-7 in the championship match.
Brisman became the first Ithaca wrestler to win a national title since Ricardo Gomez ’13 in 2013. By scoring 21 team points during the tournament, Brisman helped the Bombers to a third-place finish in the team standings, the squad’s highest mark since 1995, and the best mark in the career of Head Coach Marty Nichols ’90.