For the 9th year in a row, we walked away as champions of the best indoor meet of the year! There were a ton an action packed races this weekend, and it made for quite an exciting meet!
Let’s get started by taking a look at the throwers. With almost everyone throwing either season’s bests or PRs, the throwers had an amazing day. All five girls that competed swept the top 5 Shot Put places with Obioma Azie getting first with a throw of 9.81m followed closely by Inga Augustaitis who threw 9.79m. Tare Emuze, Nayeli Lara, and Coach Ali Djokic rounded out the top 5 with throws of 9.26m, 8.14m, and 7.69m respectively. The guys also walked away as champions of the ring with Thomas Nute leading the group with a massive PR of 12.66m. Salvador Ruiz was second in the group as he also threw a PR with a 12.24m heave. They were 3rd and 5th individually but together were the best duo out there getting 1st for our team. We should all be very pumped to see how the throwers continue to perform as we move into the outdoor season with the added excitement of discus!
Sticking with the F part of ITFC, it’s time to shift focus to the pits. Sonia Zhang and Abby Ralph hop-skip-and-jumped their way to 2nd in the Triple Jump with leaps of 9.79m and 9.78m respectively. Becky Haight joined Abby in the Long Jump where Becky got 1st and Abby 4th to win first overall. The duo switched from going sideways to upward in the High Jump where they were joined by Kassie Kushner. All three marked in an event that none of them compete in regularly with Becky jumping the highest at 4’7. On the guy”s side of the high jump pit, Hameed Odunowhere-he-came-from managed a jump of 6”1 to get 1st overall. Some people didn”t think it was possible, but sprints coach Mike Kreiser was seen RUNNING at the meet! He dusted off his old uniform and high jumped 5”1 to be the second scoring jumper. Hameed joined Yemi Sonoiki in the triple jump where they managed a 3rd place team finish despite barely having time to practice the event. Hameed leaped 11.34m and Yemi made it 11.39m. In the long jump, Mason Rosenberg had a club PR going 5.94 m. All-in-all very impressive from the jumpers especially considering a lot of them were jumping unfamiliar events and knew they needed to do well.
On to the track beginning with the distance events. In the grueling 3000 m, Anneliese Schulz had another solid showing coming in 7th with a time of 11:03. After injury-laden indoor season thus far, Emma Burkhardt powered through the pain and ended up getting 11th with a time 11:22, which was enough for 4th place for the team. Also in the 3K, Audrey Vandercar PR’d by almost 20 seconds coming in at 11:46! On the men’s side, we had a couple of nice performances and came away with a 4th place finish. Wiam Wolf led the group of guys coming in at 8:56, followed by Alex Lindsay who ran a 9:02. On to the Mile, we saw a lot of fast performances. Eli Walker raced well and won his heat with a time of 4:33. Shortly after him, Mackenzie “Big Mac” Bach made his club track debut running a 4:35 in the same heat. Coach Ryan Somerfield and Justin Shim rounded out the scoring crew with times of 4:29 and 4:38 respectively. The girls came away as champions in the Mile with a bunch of really awesome performances. The Mid-D girls proved to be a force to be reckoned with as Emily Condic, Erin McKee, and Emily Foley were all in the scoring group. Both Emily’s ran PR’s with Condic running a 5:36 and Foley running a 5:46. Erin McKee showed off her heart of a lion as she ran a blazing last lap to finish at 5:39. Snug in the middle of those girls, Anneliese finished up an amazing double after her 3K earlier by running a 5:40. Special shout out to Riley Maloney for running a nearly 30 second PR with a 6:03 and Noel Brindise for breaking the 6-minute mark in the mile! Great job all around for the 3K and Mile runners!
Switching gears to the short stuff, we saw some great performances from the hurdling men with Michael Jang breaking 9.00 once again with an 8.99 and Joseph Bleyer who PR’d with a time of 9.01, placing 1st overall as a team. Becky Haight decided the fastest wasn’t fast enough and broke her own record in the 60m with a time of 8.12 which landed her 1st overall. In the 60m hurdles, Abby Ralph got 2nd with a time of 9.82 which was just hundredths off of her record as she now has all 10 of the top 10 performances. How many times am I going to mention Becky and Abby? Probably a lot due to Becky’s six and Abby’s seven events they scored in this weekend.
We move on to the meet”s namesake, the relay events! In the 4×800, the men’s team of Keith Lee, Alex Hanskat, Jason Golden, and Tyler Splitt placed 3rd with a time of 8:06 and the women’s team of Emily Foley, Tiffany Yathaputanomglongestnameever, Erin Mckee, and Emily Condic placed 4th with a time of 10:31. The 4×200 was fast on both sides as the girl”s squad of Becky Haight, Kassie Kushner, Lauren Grant, and Abby Ralph narrowly took second with a time of 1:52.47. The guy”s team of Mason Rosenberg, Kevin Sager, Sully Bazai, and Mateusz Lopez won the meet and broke the meet record with a time of 1:33.01. Not only did the men have the 1st place 4×200, but they also had the 4th place team with Michael Jang, Connor Murphy, Deteen Kataba, and Garret Barch running just 1.3 seconds slower at 1:34.30. Both the guys and the girls Sprint Medley Relays took 2nd in the meet. The girl”s team was composed of Becky, Abby, Kaleigh Evans, and Selena Wallace and they ran 4:33.13. They guys team consisted of Mason, Kevin, Sully, and Tyler and they ran a time of 3:39.96.
The meet ended with some excitement in the final event of the day, the 4×400. The girl”s team of Becky, Abby, Lauren, and Kaleigh battled their way to a 2nd place finish with a time of 4:22.13. The guy”s side was where things got interesting as injuries caused the A and B teams to combine. Kevin, Mateusz, Sully, and Tyler ran alone from the B relays heat and ran a 3:23.28 which was almost 7 seconds faster than any other team and the fastest indoor 4×400 the club has ever seen by 2.8 seconds! Special shout out to Keith Lee, Michael Jang, and Deteen Kataba for getting bumped out of their 4×400 teams due to the last second change. It was such an exciting end to an even more exciting meet!
The conclusion of Club Relays marked the conclusion of our indoor season but is far from the end of this year in track. Make sure you stay tuned as ITFC shifts gears to outdoor and looks to take on the rest of the clubs at NIRCA Nationals on April 8th and 9th!”,2017-03-09 01:58:00+00,Indoor