Track and field teams qualify for nationals

Photo by: Henoc Kivuye

 

Head Coach of Men and Women’s Track and Field Randy Heath viewed the Missouri Southern Lion Invitational as a stepping stone to the NCCAA Indoor Championship, having high hopes for his athletes going into the meet.

“This meet is an important meet for us because it is kind of two-thirds of our season,” Heath said. “So we need this meet, and to do well to get ready for the national meet.”

Leading up to the Lion Invitational, athletes looked for more qualifying times to bring to the Championship.

“The goal before the meet was to get more people qualified in the 200,” senior Andrea Dennis said. “Before this meet … I was the only one that had qualified, and normally we all want to qualify in the 200, so we can all go together and actually get our 4×400 time faster.”

Sophomore Austin Wallace attended seven specially combined events over two days as a participant of the men’s heptathlon.

“We are really excited about him getting to do that for the first time this year,” Heath said.

Wallace finished the event in 14th place, posting a total score of 4,546 points. He came in second place out of 24 competitors in the 60-meter dash. Wallace took fourth place in the shot put, and jumped 6.03m and 1.80m respectively in the long jump and the high jump. His efforts earned 13th and 16th place in the 60-meter hurdles and the pole vault. Finally, he finished the 1,000-meter run in 3:02.40.

Athletes understood the importance of their individual events and applied their full effort. This meet was essential for athletes to polish their skills in preparation for nationals, according to Heath.

“There are no team scores, and so the goal of the meet is to not worry about what place we are,” Heath said. “Athletes need to perform very well and we need to have our best performances of this season. It’s not the team score and place that are important now, but the performance of each individual athlete.”

Dennis took 24th out of 63 competitors with a final time of 27.29 seconds in the 200-meter relay.

“She is going to try to record her best time in the 200-meter,” Heath said before the meet. “She is an anchor of the 4×400, so she will have one of the better splits if not the best 400 time. I am expecting her to do a little better than she has done in the last couple meets.”

Dennis also competed in the 4×400 meter race, and the Lady Eagles earned fourth place out of 14 teams with a time of 4:12.25. The team consisted of Dennis, sophomore Kara Drewke, sophomore Rebecca Bloodworth and senior Somer Helms.

“Our ladies did really well in the 200 and in the 400,” Dennis said. “We had two more people qualify in the open two, and one more person also qualified in the open four. We were really actually excited because we love to run events at MSSU; it’s a bigger track, the curves are a lot better, so we were really excited about this meet.”

The 4×400 meter race requires its share of teamwork, so athletes need to practice together, building the necessary chemistry to get consistently better scores according to Dennis.

“Our coach gives us our individual split, so we get to actually see progress from the last meet to the next meet,” Dennis said. “We look at our splits and we try to get better individually so our time as a whole can be faster. We work harder the week before.”

Sophomore Bryant Keirns took sixth out of 34 competitors in the 5,000-meter race with a final time of 15:14.94.

“Keirns has not competed in the 5,000 this year yet, but he got a really good time in 3,000,” Heath said before the meet. “He is ranked in the qualifying group for that, so I think he and his coaches are hopeful that he will have a very good race and meet qualifying standards, maybe be in the top 8-10 of the meet at the event.”

Keirns himself noted that even though he ran a solid time, there’s still room for improvement.

“It went well,” Keirns said. “I maybe didn’t run my smartest race, but I’m still up there in my best time. I’m feeling pretty good, pretty encouraged that the work is paying off, but I think I can do better; just not my smartest race.”

Oklahoma Christian University’s next meet is the Central Oklahoma Indoor Invitational in Norman, Okla. tomorrow.