Indoor track season is in full swing, as the Illinois Track Club recorded a number of strong performances this past weekend at the Illinois Wesleyan University Titan Open. The ITC men’s team finished seventh with 18 points, while the women’s team also captured seventh place, with 9 points.
The day would begin with a dominating performance in the men’s DMR, as the two relay teams entered would finish 1st and 2nd place. The ‘A’ relay team would lead wire to wire, with the ‘B’ team moving into second on a 4:35 1600m anchor leg by Eric De Guevara. Ryan Jorgensen, who was the lead off runner for the ‘A’ DMR team, would return later that day to finish 4th in the 800m, in a time of 1:58.91. Other highlights in the distance events included a personal best of 9:16.14 by Chris Valicka, and a display of pack running in the mile, as Andrew Gazdziak, Henry Wolf, and Joe Zeller would finish within four seconds of each other.
Not to be outdone, the sprinters had an equally impressive showing, having six entrants in the 60m dash (Kyle Sanders, Matt Halberthal, Fuad Akinbiyi, Jayme Roberts, Oluwayemisi Sonoiki, and Max Methling). Kyle Sanders and Matt Halberthal would advance to the finals in the 60m dash, where Halberthal would break the club record by 0.01 seconds, in a time of 7.12. This group would return later to run the 200m, joined by Will Stein. Ben Kanevsky, Andrew Cholewa and Scott Luedtke would add a trio of fast times in the 400m.
Moving to the field events, Manny Del Rio recorded a jump of 5.54 meters in the long jump, while Scott Luedtke jumped 11.27 meters in the triple jump. It was a great day for the Illinois throws squad, as ITC sent the largest throws team in the club’s history. Chad Bobbit threw 13.12 meters (only .03 off the club record) in the shot put, good enough for fourth place. Mark Pszczolkowski, Matt Kmet, and Tyler Kamp also turned in strong marks in the shot put.
Turning to the women, Minyona Mason would throw 6.24m in the shot put, the first event of the day. Grace Hucek ran an inspiring race, in her first running competition in over a year, taking 4th overall in the 800m race from the second heat in a time of 2:29.95. Meanwhile, in her first collegiate indoor track race, Beth McGreal ran a time of 5:39.92 in the mile, finishing sixth.
In the 400m dash, Caitlin Blalock would have the top finish in 1:03.78 (only 0.01 seconds off the club record), good enough for 9th overall. She would return with fellow 400m runners Lauren Jonen, Cassie Arenz, and Lauren Henderson to run the 4x400m relay, finishing 4th in a time of 4:25.02.
Megan Mocogni led the way for the distance squad, finishing in 11:26.00 in the 3000m, with Monica O’Connor only fractions of a second behind, in 11:26.11, out of the second heat.
All in all, it was a great day of indoor track and field, with plenty of other great results from ITC athletes. Full results will be posted in the Results section of the website.
