Vanguard Photo l Jolie Wyse
The men’s and women’s track and field teams hosted and competed in the GLIAC Indoor Track and Field Championships over the weekend, with both teams finishing in fourth place overall.
The first day of the event, Saturday, Feb. 23, saw two members of the men’s team, both redshirt freshmen, collect individual GLIAC Championships.
Ryan Talbott won the conference in the 5,000-meter run with a time of 14:40.84. Casey Williams, who also plays football at SVSU, won the GLIAC title in the long jump with a distance of 7.42 meters.
Both were provisional marks.
Saturday, the men earned their third individual title, as senior Ryan Kelly won the GLIAC in the shotput with a throw of 17.86 meters, again a provisional mark.
“Ryan Talbott winning a title in the distance events in a very competitive conference and running a really a masterful race, it was pretty exciting,” said Jason Hartmann, an associate head track and field coach. “Casey has been with us for a brief period of time from football, and he’s done some wonderful things for us. His mark looks like it will bring him to the national meet. He’s been an awesome addition for us.”
Also on Friday, the women’s distance medley relay team of senior Allison Dorr, junior Lauren Huebner, junior Morgan Fuerst and sophomore Jenna Keiser placed second. They posted a provisional mark with a time of 11:45.52.
Huebner and senior Andriana Higgins both moved on to Saturday’s finals in the 60-meter hurdles, where they would ultimately finish in second and third, respectively.
Huebner also finished third in the long jump with a distance of 5.58 meters, and sophomore Donna Jean Eschenbacher placed sixth.
Higgins also advanced to the finals in the 200-meter dash, where she placed fifth on Saturday with a time of 25.03.
In the 5,000-meter run, senior Sophia Bradley placed fifth with a time of 18:00.62. Senior Dominique Adams placed sixth with a time of 18:10.09.
On the men’s side, senior Clyde Anderson III placed eigth in the 5,000-meter run with a time of 14:55.12.
In additional Saturday results, Keiser placed second in the mile run, provisionally qualifying with a time of 4:58.00. Dorr also had an impressive runner-up finish in the 3,000-meter run with a provisional qualifying time of 9:47.38.
The 4×400-meter relay team of Huebner, Higgins, junior Samantha Warren and freshman Alona Olshevska took home a third-place finish with a provisional time of 3:49.02. In field events, freshman Alicia Aldrich placed fourth in the shot put.
The men’s fourth-place finish overall may have been the result of some bad luck. One of its top runners, junior Juan Bowers, sustained a hamstring injury on Friday that prevented him from competing in several events, including the 200-meter dash and the distance medley relay.
Nonetheless, the team still turned in some impressive finishes.
Senior Tom Goforth placed second and provisionally qualified in the 3,000-meter run with a time of 8:22.12. Talbott finished sixth with a time of 8:32.94.
In the heptathlon, redshirt freshmen Jacob Netschke and Noah Dooley placed fifth and sixth, respectively.
Senior Parker Eisengruber placed third in the mile with a time of 4:12.70.
The 4×400-meter relay team of junior Carter Eckhardt, senior Keith Rodriguez, redshirt freshman Noah Dooley and redshirt freshman Riley Feeney rounded out the men’s top results with a fourth-place finish.
In the final rankings, the women finished behind champion Grand Valley, runner-up Ashland, and third-place finisher Northern Michigan.
“The women had a great weekend,” Hartmann said. “It was a big improvement from last year. I’m really proud to see them improve and then also the men did really well, just had a little bit of bad luck.”
The men were topped by Grand Valley, Ashland and Northwood.
Reporting by Connor Doyle, Vanguard Reporter
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