By Sunday Abarca |
After a long weekend in South Dakota, the Adams States Track and Field team finished seventh overall on the men’s and women’s teams.
In an interview with Evan Bell, he stated, “Conference wasn’t what we were expecting. We wanted to come out on top and take home the title, but things changed. A lot of our top athletes ended up not running for a bunch of different reasons, which costed us the title.” He goes on to say, “I’m not too worried about it though. Our team is strong and one of the best in the nation. Once we have all of our athletes at outdoor nationals, we’ll take home gold.”
Despite not winning the conference championships, the Grizzlies had several outstanding individual performances.
The women’s team dominated nearly all of the sprints. Once again, Diana Johnson blew away the competition in the 100m dash with a time of 11.45 seconds. In the 100m hurdles Oweneika Watson took first with a time of 13.86. Katherine Smith came in 4th place with a time of 14.79. Continuing her outstanding outdoor season, Malakah Martinez destroyed her competition in the 400m dash. Martinez ran 56.81 in prelims and came back into finals to win with a time of 55.95.
Sam Reid took home the gold in the throws and managed to throw a new personal record with a toss of 62-9.25. Reid is currently one of the top throwers in the nation and is looking to break another personal record in the upcoming meets. His teammate, Brecht Van Waes, ended up placing 5th with a throw of 53-0.75. In Discus, we had Jordan Larson finishing in 6th place with a throw of 136-7.
On the women’s side we had sole competitor Jazmine Chosa who also finished in fifth place with a throw of 53-0.75.
In the 800m, Bell finished in 22nd place with a time of 2:01.74. In the 1500m race, we had two female competitors who finished strong. Desire Montenegro placed 6th place with a time of 4:50.54. Right behind her in 7th place was Megan Levin with a time of 4:51.91.
On the men’s side, we had Paddy Robb placing 6th in the 1500m run with a time of 4:00.46. Joshua Joseph ran the 5000m with a time of 14:56.06 which placed him in ninth.
Wrapping it up, Adams State will be going to a few different last chance meets this upcoming weekend. All the sprinters are headed off to Texas Tech to qualify for the 4x100m race, along with individual marks in the 100m and 200m race. In an interview with sophomore Tamarco Collie, he states, “We have one more chance to show everyone what we got. If all goes well, our 4x100m relay will easily qualify us for nationals and win when the time comes.”
The distance runners will head off to two different meets. Some will be competing at Payton Jordan Invite in California at Stanford University, and the rest of the distance runners will compete at the Twilight Open, which will be at the Air Force Academy.
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