Track begins outdoor season
The Greyhound track and field team traveled to Purdue University to compete in the Mike Poehlin Invitational on April 1-2, the team’s second meet of the outdoor season.
On the women’s side, freshman Isabelle May threw an NCAA provisional mark in the women’s discus with a toss of 43.22 meters, placing eighth in the event.
For the men, senior Matt Royer improved his NCAA provisional mark in the men’s weight throw by winning first place with a throw of 58.40 meters. Royer defeated multiple Division I opponents with the win.
Senior Seth Galloway also posted an NCAA provisional mark. He took first place in the javelin with a throw of 62.29 meters. Sophomore Jermel Kindred rounded out the day’s NCAA marks by winning the 400-meter hurdles with a time of 53.43 seconds.
The team traveled to Indiana Wesleyan on March 26 for the Polar Bear Invitational, the team’s first meet of the outdoor season.
The women’s team took home a first place-finish in the 4×400-meter relay with junior Kierra Allen, sophomore Kenya Owens, sophomore Haley Miller and junior Delta Martin with the time of 4:03.37.
The men’s indoor All-American 4×400-meter relay team also took home a first-place finish with sophomores Robert Gardner and Kindred, junior Jerel Flournoy and senior Nick Brattain with a time of 3:20.97.
According to head coach Scott Fangman, there’s really not much difference between the indoor and outdoor seasons, which makes the transition smooth, but there is a slight difference in the training.
“The dramatic differences are distance,” Fangman said. “Now, we’ll run longer. For instance, our longest race [in outdoor] will be twice as long as the longest race indoor. We’ll also throw two implements that go twice as far, i.e., the javelin and the discus. Then we introduce a hurdle race that goes one lap around as opposed to simply just down the straightaway.”
Despite the start of outdoor season, the cold weather was somewhat of a problem according to Fangman.
“It was cold. I hate saying that, but that’s kind of what we learned there,” Fangman said. “But we got our first race out of the way. Everyone has the first race under their belts now.”
According to Fangman, he brought in what he referred to as “outdoor specialists.” Fifth-year senior Courtney Kuzmicz is a discus thrower who was red-shirted for the indoor season. She will be throwing for the outdoor season. Senior Shannon Smith is a sprinter and also was red-shirted for the indoor season, but will be running in the outdoor season.
Both seniors Heather Rourk and Seth Galloway are javelin throwers who were All-Americans in past seasons. At the Indiana Wesleyan meet, Galloway took first place in the javelin with a throw of 54.70 meters and Rourk placed second with a throw of 34.89 meters.
“We do better outdoor than we do indoor and that’s because of the added events,” Fangman said. “We do well in the added events such as the javelin and discus.”
For this year’s conference, Fangman has expectations of winning, just as the men’s team has done in the past in the outdoor season.
“He [Fangman] has high expectations. He wants us to win, win and win,” said senior Kevin Keene. “He has full confidence that we’ll be able to do that. But the men are coming off with three straight wins in conference and coming into this next one, we have a name to uphold.”
