At the Indoor Gorilla Classic at Pittsburg State University, three athletes and one relay team from Oklahoma Christian University’s men’s and women’s track and field teams posted NCAA Division II provisional qualifying times Feb. 9-10.
On the first day of competition, freshman Andre Norman ran the 60-meter in 6.88 seconds, a provisional qualifying time, to place 10th out of 116 runners. His time was just .03 seconds from the Oklahoma Christian school record.
“My start was my personal success in the 60-meter,” Norman said. “In the 60-meter race, your start is everything. If you don’t have a good start, then your time is not going to be good.”
Norman also placed in the top 30 in the 200, running it in 22.09 seconds to finish 27th.
For the men’s distance runners, junior Evan McQuirk led the way for the Eagles in the 5,000, placing 28th out of 73 in 15:13.12.
In the women’s competition, the Lady Eagles distance medley relay team of junior Kelsey Castillo, sophomore Kelsey Simmons, junior Leisa VanVooren and graduate student Layne Hammer posted a 12:09.22 to set a new school record. The time shattered the previous record of 12:31.48 set by current Hall of Famer Peggy Murphy, Renee White, Elaine Estes and Tonja Shaw in 1991.
Graduate student McKenzie Stanford won first out of 20 competitors in the high jump, clearing 1.66 meters just .01 of a meter off the NCAA Division II provisional qualifying mark.
Stanford placed 25th out of 56 runners in the 60-meter hurdles in 9.39 seconds. Two places behind Stanford, sophomore Jordyn Williams ran the 60 hurdles in 9.43 seconds.
Finishing in the top 10 for the Lady Eagles, sophomore Lawanda Harvey placed sixth out of 93 runners in the 60 with a time of 7.78 seconds.
On the second day of competition for the Eagles, senior Landon Huslig ran the 60 hurdles in 8.18 seconds to place fourth and record a provisional qualifying time.
In the 4×400 relay, Huslig, Norman, freshman Ian Colbert and senior Sawyer Pehkonen placed seventh out of 48 teams in 3:15.62, which marked another provisional qualifying time for the Eagles.
“The 4×400 team looks great right now—everyone is healthy and wants to hit that 3:13 mark,” Norman said. “Honestly, nothing needs to be done. We just need all four guys to go out there, give it their best and everything should just fall in place. But not every race is perfect, there are going be some mess ups and some stuff that wasn’t supposed happen. When that happens, we just have to get over it and let it go, because there is nothing we can do about it.”
For the 400, Colbert and Pehkonen both finished in the top 10 out of 59 runners. Colbert placed third in his season best time of 48.68 seconds and Pehkonen came in at seventh in his season best time of 48.97 seconds.
Another top-10 finish came for the Eagles from senior Lobley in the mile with a personal season best time of 4:19.65.
In the second day of competition for the Lady Eagles, Hammer ran the 3,000 in 9:35.14 to finish fourth and post a NCAA Division II provisional qualifying time.
Simmons finished ninth out of 58 runners in the 800 at 2:21.54 and Castillo placed 14th in the mile with a time of 5:22.91.
For their final indoor meet of the regular season, the men’s and women’s track and field teams will travel to Fayetteville, AR to compete in the Arkansas Qualifier Feb. 16.
“The Arkansas meet is going to be great I think,” Norman said. “It’s the last indoor regular season meet, so I think it’s going to be good. The last time we went to Arkansas, everybody did amazing and I’m hoping that it can happen again.”
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