With two more meets behind us, let’s take a look at what went down.
There were debuts all over the squad and many amazing ones at that. On the sprints side, Alex Bienduga made his first two appearances in a blazing fashion by posting the second and third fastest 400 times run by the club so far this year (53.21 and then 52.52) as well as running a very solid 23.59 in the 200 at the ONU Invite. Mason Rosenberg continued to show his speed leading the group in the 200 with a time of 23.46 at the IWU Titan Open. He also made his debut in the long jump posting a top 10 jump of 5.87m. Along with him, Sonia Zhang triple jumped for the first time and blasted her way onto the number 6 spot in the top 10’s list with a jump of 9.80m. Their coach, Mateusz Lopez, also put up his second best ever long jump at 6.06m and a 51.99 in the 400. Veteran sprinter Becky Haight, after already getting the 60m record earlier this year, continues to knock on the door of multiple records. She is now hundredths away from the record in both the 200m (26.44 at EIU) and the long jump after her 4.98 m leap at IWU. Hurdler Michael Jang ran sub-9 again in the 60m Hurdles at IWU and also posted a club personal best of 24.06 in the 200m at ONU and hopes to continue to remain injury free this season.
The troop of first-year throwers continues to drop far marks as they look to put up big numbers in the coming weeks. Inga Augustaitis made her shot put debut and looks to be very competitive in the women’s throws this year.
Mid-distance had a couple big returns in the past two meets with Erin McKee joining us after a semester abroad, and Ryne Beeson returning after 8 long years in hibernation. Erin joined other mid-d girls Tiffany Yathaputanon and Emily Foley in the 800 as they all posted times within seconds of each other right at the 2:40 mark. Emily also made an appearance at ONU where she took to the mile and ran a 5:49. Ryne shook the dust off his legs and put his walker aside as he ran a very solid 800 (2:07) and mile (4:40). Another mid-d debut came from Jason Golden who ran a 2:03 in the 800 at IWU. Hannah Smith ran an awesome 3000m where she absolutely dusted her heat and came in with a PR of 11:53. (I know, I know.. The 3K is not a mid-distance event. I get it)
Distance finally came out the woodwork with a fury of milers and 3000m runners. With the track debuts of Jarod Meyer, Evan Patel, and Cody Lund, the mile was insanely exciting. Leading the bunch was freshman Alex Hanskat battling the whole way to post an awesome time of 4:40.87. He was followed in by Cody (4:45), Evan (4:51), and Jarod (4:52) which was an awesome race to watch. The 3000m was literally packed with our squad (check out this picture: Men”s 3000M) and boy did they show up. There were club PRs from Wiam Wolf (8:55), Josh Feldman (9:00), distance coach Ryan Somerfield (9:05), Alex Lindsay in his debut (9:08), and Leonel Rodriguez (who PR’d by almost 30 seconds with a 9:32) all from the meet at IWU. The following weekend at ONU, freshman Zach Mesplay was the lone ITC runner in his debut race, the 3000m, where he ran a 9:21. He was joined by Riley Maloney who had a lifetime PR of 6:33 in the mile but looks to keep improving on that time as she gets more opportunities to race.
There were a ton of exciting performances from these meets and there is still so much more to come! With groups going to GVSU and Taylor University this weekend, you better get pumped for some great times! Most of the squad will be heading to Taylor University to go head to head with some of Indiana’s best track athletes including Indiana’s club team. The rest of the group will be making the trek out to Allendale, MI in our only overnight meet of the indoor season. GVSU houses an extremely fast 300m track in the icy tundra that is Michigan. Known for being the site of the many of our records, including both the men’s and women’s 200m and 400m as well as the women’s 3000m, it will definitely be a fast one. With almost 50 people set to compete, it should be the biggest weekend yet!”,2017-02-09 00:05:00+00,Indoor