Adam Kelly | Echo
The Taylor track teams competed at the IWU Invitational last Saturday for their second indoor meet of the season. Both teams came home with more national qualifiers than when they started.
"Our home meet was probably one of the best starts in school history," said women's coach Quinn White. "We had a variety of fantastic performances, and at the IWU meet we picked up where we left off the previous week. We improved in nearly every event and we had three more national qualifiers."
Three students qualified from the women's team, for both the A and B standard. The distance medley team qualified for the A standard at nationals. The medley team, consisting of sophomores Jane Hawks and Katie DeHaan and juniors Jenna Norris and Elaine Schmeltz, qualified with a time of 12:33.34.
The individual qualifiers for the women's team were freshmen Kerigan Riley and Anna Meyer, placing third and fourth, respectively, running times of 5:13.05 and 5:13.22. Hannah Schroder added a quality win to Taylor's stats with a 10:36.11 in the 3000 meter, missing national qualification by just over a second. The Trojans' Sarina Oleson and Grace Carver, sophomores, posted times of 3:09.03 and 3:09.15, respectively, taking home second and third place.
"It is really exciting having our two distance relays qualify for nationals together. We can continue to push one another at practice to help better prepare for the national meet in March," Schmeltz said.
The men's team had two individual qualifiers as well. Senior Luke Currens and junior Jared Reed both qualified B standard for nationals. Currens sprinted the 60 meter hurdles in 8.6 seconds while Reed finished second with a time of 2:33.78 in the 1000 meter.
"Making nationals is definitely exciting. I am extremely pumped for Jared because he was hurt all last year, and to see him work as hard as he has this past month and a half has paid off," Currens said.
Many other Trojans competed at a high standard, including senior Kenny Higgins, who fell short of qualifying for nationals by a centimeter at 16.49 in the weight throw. Freshman Leslie Romer finished seventh in the 60 meter dash with a run of 7.13 seconds, and Gabe Minniear jumped 12.07 meters, landing in third place.
"In our second indoor meet of the season the men's team competed with intensity and made solid progress," men's coach Lance Vanderberg said. "Having two NAIA qualifiers was very exciting and the entire team will hope to build on this week's achievements when we compete at Purdue next weekend."
Both teams will travel to Purdue University tomorrow for their next meet.
Photography by Timothy P. Riethmiller
