The Illinois Track and Field Club sent 5 women and 15 men to compete at the John Craft Invite in Charleston, Illinois this past weekend.
Last season, a common question asked about Emma Grimes was how many club records she was going to break at any given meet. After just racing twice before last Saturday, the Graduate student broke her own Indoor Mile record, running a 5:05.21, placing 3rd in the meet. Grimes also placed 4th overall in the 800m from the second heat with a 2:20.91.
Freshman Erin McKee ran a 5:30.24 in the mile at her debut on a college track. The women 3000m runners ran well under their seed times, with Sophomore Emma Burkhardt placing 12th, running 11:10.51, and Senior Paige Oboikovitz placing 15th, running 11:25.83. Graduate Student Erin Murphy (Yes, we sent 2 Emmas, 2 Erins, and a Paige) placed 14th in both the 60m dash and the 200m dash and 12th in the 400m dash.
On the Men’s side, Steven Decker ran an impressive 600m run. He zoomed through the first 200m in 24s, and battled to maintain his lead for the rest of the race, winning the third heat and placing 6th overall with a time of 1:24.54. Decker was also part of 8th place 4×400 team consisting of Jayme Roberts, Decker, Beau Barber, and Stav Caplan.
Senior Greg Netols took an uncontested lead 500m into the second heat of the mile and led for the remainder of the race, finishing 9th overall at 4:25.11. Sophomore Jared Ripoli took second in that heat, good for 12th overall at 4:29.02, and Freshman Jack O’Neil finished 15th overall with a 4:33.19. Illinois Elite Zach Boehmke and Graduate Student Henry Wolf led the final heat of the mile, finishing at 4:38.55 and 4:41.30, respectively.
Freshman Michael Frintner ran well in the 3000m, within 2 seconds of Senior Joseph Zeller, running at 9:19.80 and 9:17.97 respectively.
Next weekend brings another big meet for ITC, as they travel to Illinois Wesleyan in the Titan Open.
