Track and field finds success at NCCAA Championships

Photo by: Henoc Kivuye

 

Oklahoma Christian University’s men’s track and field team took 10th place while the Lady Eagles claimed 16th place in the NCCAA Indoor Championships.

Sophomore Austin Wallace led the Eagles, earning second place in the heptathlon with 4,783 total points – a career-high score that earned him All-America honors for the second straight year.

“I am proud of the women’s team for scoring six points,” Head Coach of Men’s and Women’s Track and Field Randy Heath said. “I think last year we only scored three, so we improved. On the men, we graduated lots of people who scored last year, so getting 10th with 21 points with the new group that we have this year was good.”

Heath had high praise for both squads’ efforts.

“I think we did as good as we could do given the events we qualified for,” Heath said. “It’s a tough meet, lots of competition, but we performed well and we had some near misses. They just barely missed scoring points, so overall I feel like for what we took we did as well as we could do.”

Because the NCCAA championship is a national level competition, Oklahoma Christian had the chance to face off against some of the best athletes around.

“It’s an awesome experience when you see multiple athletes compete for the gold,” sophomore Kara Drewke said before the championship. “I came here to learn and take in the experience. My goal for this meet is to scope out the competition for outdoor and to set a new personal record.”

Drewke came in 24th place out of 26 competitors in the 400-meters.

“I wasn’t really happy with how I ran, and I feel like I could have done better,” Drewke said. “Even with that, I learned from it and will use it to improve. I had better race times during the season than I did this weekend, so I just need to make some adjustments and move on to outdoor season – focusing on my 400-hurdles race.”

Many athletes posted season-best times at the meet.

The Eagles’ relay team, consisting of freshman Austin Kruzich, freshman Joshua Jones, senior Winston Ogletree and junior Jamal George, took seventh place in the 4×200 relays with a final time of 1:32.68. In the 4×400 relays the squad also earned a season best by taking 10th place with a final time of 3:29.88.

The Lady Eagles set personal season records as well. Freshman Maci Rich came in ninth place with a final time of 5:22.56 in the mile. Senior Andrea Dennis and sophomore Rebecca Bloodworth both got a season best in the 200-meters, and their efforts earned them 11th and 13th place with a final time of 26.81 and 26.90 respectively.

As a newcomer to nationals, Kruzich in particular took his times in stride and looked to the future.

“Competing at the national level was a new experience for me and it was lots of fun, especially as a freshman,” Kruzich said. “I wasn’t too happy about [my performance], but it’s something to build off of [and] come back next time and do better.”

With indoor season ending and outdoor season picking up, the athletes are taking past experience and analyzing their performance.

“[The indoor season] was good, and we improved a lot this season,” Kruzich said. “I started off injured and came in a little bit late, and I missed the first two meets of the year. But after I came back, I improved pretty consistently and it ended up a pretty successful season.”

Freshman Kyle Broaddrick and sophomore Bryant Keirns both competed the 5,000-meter and 3,000-meter races. In the 3,000-meters, Keirns took sixth place with a final time of 8:47.85, and Broaddrick took 10th place with a final time of 8:55.62. Junior Brennym Kaelin also placed ninth with a final time of 8:55.21. In the 5,000-meters, Keirns placed fourth, and Broaddrick took seventh place.

The Lady Eagles earned six total points in the relays. The team, consisting of Bloodworth, senior Wilmina Gley, senior Somer Helms and Dennis, came in fifth place with a final time of 4:05.45, and seventh place in 1:48.47 in the 4×400 and 4×200, respectively.

Regardless of the outcome of each individual competitor, Heath had nothing but praise for both squads’ work ethic and competiveness in the national meet.

“We’ve had a very busy indoor season; you can see the number of meets we went to and we competed well,” Heath said. “Some people did better in the regular season than they did at this National Christian College Meet, but that’s the way it is in track and field. You just take your best meets and do your events the best you can.”

Oklahoma Christian seeks to carry over the indoor season’s effort to the outdoor season, according to Heath.

“We’re resting the people from this weekend and we’re training for our outdoor events, which we’ll try to work in with the weather,” Heath said. “There are some different events outdoors that we haven’t done all during the indoor seasons, so we get used to those again in practice. We get a little bit of time transition to do the rest of our schedule outdoors.”

The first outdoor meet is the Southwestern Invitational in Winfield, Kan., on March 13.