This is the best day of the year. People have been hyped about this meet since LAST club relays.
Sit tight, this is a long write-up. Feel free to annotate or take Cornell notes. There will be a quiz.
Let”s start fast with the 60m dashes. Leading the sprinters is, you already know it, B. E. C. K. Y. H. A. I. G. H. T. She dominated this race all season and ran 8.02 for a new club/meet/personal record. Is she going to go sub 8.00? Yes. Other big races came from Lauren Grant who PR”d AGAIN. Every PR she has is from this season, what a senior year. She dropped from 8.78 to 8.60.
Steven Bellefontaine also PR”d in the 60, leading the Illinois men with 7.30. Evan sacks had quite a day, improving by .26 seconds to run 7.93 for his first time under 8.00. Qixin Zhu ran his first race with us, running 8.15 and Shantanu dipped under 10.00 for the first time, running 9.77.
We recently said our goodbyes to Roger Bannister, the first man to run under 4:00 in the mile. But what”s even more special is when we watch a young man break 5:00 in the mile or a young woman break 6:00. It”s not news-worthy, it”s not groundbreaking, but it”s theirs and no one can take that away. Matt Dickinson ran 4:59.72 with a 71 second last lap for his first time under 5:00. Big congrats to him. Also, Cody Hansen ran 4:59.77 to go sub 5 for the first time in college. Daniel Engel also was shooting for sub 5:00 but just missed it by 0.95 seconds, running hard from the front and bringing the pack with him. Winning the mile was Josh Mollway who went 2:14-2:06 in an epic last 400 that lasted 60 seconds. Alex Hanskat was the #2 runner leading from the front and running brave. He had a 7 second improvement from the start of the season and is looking to improve his kick. John Kellum also PR”d after running 2:00 flat in his 4×800 leg. Evan Patel won his heat of the mile and looked damn good doing it. Matthew Beckerman has been consistent at practice but simply hasn”t raced. Until now. He threw down a solid mile, running 4:58 in his iconic headband. Olan Bruyere also PR”d from his highschool 1600 time of 5:20. He ran 5:14 and is hungry for more. Jeevan Madilla ran 5:24 after running only 3 days this season, just imagine where he”s gonna be after some solid training under him. Pierre ran 5:16 which is very impressive since he”s a former mountain/trail runner but now runs fast with the Mid-D crew.
On the women”s side, Emily Foley closed her indoor club career with a 5:26. A 2 second PR and 3rd place overall, exactly what she was shooting for. Anneliese Schulz was the #2 woman running 5:37 with many surges and a great kick. She ran this after a 3k PR which, lemme tell ya, is not as easy as she makes it look. Learning from her previous races, Vicky Dent raced conservatively and ran 5:44 to win her heat with a dive across the line. Noel Brindise stuck with Erin McKee to run 5:47. She used to run too fast in the beginning but instead saved energy for a solid 40 second kick. After missing 6 weeks of training over winter break, Noel feels confident to keep on keeping on. Recently, she did a 9-mile run slightly slower than her 6k pace. I know the math doesn”t make sense, but it happened and she”s on fire. Tiffany Yathaputanon ran her first mile with the club and broke 6:00! She clocked 5:56 and ran all the same races as her boyfriend #GOALS. Laura Houston also had her first race with us, throwing down a solid 6:09. Audrey Bloomquist, in her 2nd track race in a very long time, improved by 5 seconds to run 6:24.
It wouldn”t be a proper relay meet without some 4×200”s, now would it? The women were lead by a #4 club performance in 1:50.07. Evans, Haight, Grant and Williams took the W. The B team of Ward, Moore, Shillington, and Zhang ran 2:00.92. On the men”s side, the A team ran 1:32.88 which is now a meet record and #2 all time. The B team of Sager, Rosenberg, Barch, and Marszewski ran 1:34.69 and the C team consisting of Barenas, Jang, Sacks, and Ivanoff ran 1:37.92. By the way, the B team ran #6 all time and the C team ran #10 all time. How on earth can we have 3 different squads get into the top 10 lists it doesn”t make sense, but it happened.
Everybody and their uncle ran the 3k. Starting with the women, Julia Schultz ran a #3 all time of 10:25.87. Her win was more important than just a win and a PR. She said ‘”The 3k wasn”t just a PR, it was me shattering all the limitations I had put on myself for years'”. She has big goals and more limitations to shatter. A credit to her success is her training partner Anneliese Schulz who PR”d in 10:53. The next morning, Anneliese casually ran 16 miles. Vicky dent PR”d in her second 3k ever in 11:24. Anna Piazza and Megan Frintner closed their indoor club careers with 12:30 and 14:02 times, respectively.
On the men”s side, freshman Brian Butcher led the way in 8:56 followed by William wolf in 9:04 and Josh Feldman in 9:09. Quinn Todzo was happy with his 4 second improvement in 9:10. Connor Farrell and Michael Gerkin ran 9:15 and 9:18, respectively which is a testament to their grit during Tuesday night workouts. Battling a nagging hamstring injury, Jarod Meyer ran 9:38 despite riding the ”pain train” the last 1000 meters. He may have collapsed at the finish, but he”s up and ready to go for the 5k outdoors. Speaking of getting up, Michael Frintner ran 9:46 after an unfortunate battle with Achilles pain. Also coming back from injury was Rohit Kumar who ran 10:55 and showed he”s not giving up just yet. A big shoutout to Kevin Callahan who has been an underappreciated presence on the distance squad. He is a hard worker above all else and happy to be racing again.
In the hurdles, coach Michael Jang was worried about having enough hurdlers. Thankfully, Garret Barch stepped up to train and in his first hurdle race with the club, he got #3 all time with 8.89. No big deal. Michael Jang ran 9.40 after battling an Achilles injury. He said he is happy with his hurdle form and is looking to regain some speed and drop time. Sonia Zhang also stepped up to the hurdle challenge and ran 11.44 after 2 weeks of training and Ali Djokic made a guest appearance running 11.77.
Props to Kevin Sager and Mason Rosenberg who ran 400m legs in the SMR and were in that stunning B team 4×400. Two 400s is a lot to ask from sprinters who cover the distance in 50ish seconds. In the SMR, Harris, Marszewski, Sager and Lee won in 3:38.91. #2 all time, but you”re probably used to the club leaderboards getting rearranged. Our leaderboards are filled with 2018 times. Andy Marszewski made a phenomenal move 50m into his 200m leg that solidified the lead. The women”s squad of Haight, Williams, Grant, and Schultz won, of course. The #3 all time performance was propelled by a great 200m split from Williams and a great 400m split from Grant.
In the 4×800 the men”s team of Splitt, Lee, Kellum and Mollway took second by .06 to Minnesota. The exciting race was capitalized by Josh Mollway”s 1:56 anchor leg. Their time of 7:55.66 shattered the indoor (8:03.23) AND outdoor (7:59.58) records. Look out @nirca. John Kellum described what it meant to be on such a dominating relay. ‘”Really thankful for the opportunity to race with Keith, Splitt, and Mollway and make club history as well. It was an honor to be able to represent our club like that'”.
The women”s 4×800 lead off with Kaleigh Evans. Maia Haworth worked to close the gap between herself and the 3 teams up front. Lexy Rudofski ran a stellar leg that put Emily Foley in position to strike. Foley went from around 6th to 4th in an exciting come back. Props to these women.
The 4×400 is always a good time. For the women, they really didn”t need a W, but they sure wanted it. With Becky Haight nursing a minor injury, the ever-dependable Emily Foley stepped up to the A race with Ashley Raehsler taking Emily”s spot. Foley, Grant, Evans, and Schultz dominated with 4:17.14. For the men the A team (3:26.6 Bienduga, Lopez, Nebel, Splitt) and the B team (3:31.97 Sager, Barch, Bellefontaine, Rosenberg) took the top two spots. In total, there were 21 4×400 squads from Illinois.
For the throws, Obie Azie was happy with her PR of 10.11m which is a big improvement from her 8.78m from UIndy. Inga Augustaitis took second behind Obie with 9.80. Nayeli Lara threw 8.36: her second best throw ever and even better than her outdoor PR.
Liam Nassib threw 11.14 and the dedicated freshman Kelvin Cross threw 10.12. That is a huge improvement from the 8.72 he tossed earlier in the season. Connor Murphy threw 8.82m last club relays but tossed 9.75m at this meet for an indoor PR.
The high jump is always tricky to do at club relays. But Becky Haight (1.40m) Ashley Raehsler (1.30) and Sonia Zhang (1.30) got the job done. Hooray for high jump! Hameed Odunewu (1.85m) and Connor Murphy (1.70) scored good points for us with their marks.
The long jump was dominated by Illinois athletes. Raehsler (5.05m #3 all time) took the win. Jasmine Williams jumped for the first time as well. The men went 1-2-3 with Nebel (6.65m) Howard (6.35m) and Murphy (6.18m). These three men and Raehsler are unstoppable in the long jump and NIRCA is soon going to see it.
In the triple jump, Lopez (13.07m) and Raehsler (10.16m) both won with Zhang (9.82) taking 2nd for the women. Lopez”s jump broke his own club record but might not have even counted. In order to score, two jumpers needed to get a mark. Thankfully, Yemi stepped up. Having hurt his hamstring in the 60m dash, he was in pretty bad shape. But, he toughened up and got a jump in so that Mateusz”s jump would qualify for points. Shout out to Yemi.
In summary, the men and women won their 10th Club Relays. We have rewritten so many records this season it is crazy. NIRCA doesn”t know what”s coming for them. Thank you to volunteers, parents, alumni, Eric Vetter, and our athletes. On to outdoors!