2011 Indoor Bests (as of 05 Feb)
Recap provided by Don Garrett
The weather played havoc with ACU sports schedules this past week and track and field was no different than the other spring sports. The multi-athletes (the men heptathletes and the women pentathletes) were entered in their first multi-event competition of the season at Wichita State, but were unable to get out of Abilene to compete. ACU has 7 multi-athletes, 4 men and 3 women, who will now have to find another meet to post their first marks of the year indoors.
The remaining track squad split into 2 groups - with one group going to New York City to compete in the New Balance Invitational meet held at the New York Armory (a famed indoor track venue) and the other group going to Lubbock for the Texas Tech Open, the 3rd time some of them have competed in Lubbock this season. The performances largely showed a team that had little practice time in the last week as ACU was closed most of the week and few, if any, of the athletes had the opportunity to practice.
New York City Highlights
The NYC highlights are led off by a PR and automatic qualifying performance in the 5,000 meter run by
Amos Sang, who won the championship division race in the process with a time of 14:05.82. Eight of the next 10 runners behind Amos were from NCAA D-I schools and the twelfth place finisher was ACU teammate
Cleophas Tanui, also running a PR time of 14:30.05, which ranks him 7th in the nation in D-II. Close behind Amos' performance in national significance was the triple jump of
Ramon Sparks of 51-10, a jump which garnered him 5th place (behind 4 D-I athletes) and also moved Ramon to the top spot in the D-II triple jump rankings nationally.
Anais Belledant also had her first provisional time of the year in the mile with a 5:00.84, only 2 1/2 seconds behind her PR. Amanda Ouedraogo also had a provisional-qualifying triple jump of 39-6.5, her 2nd best jump of the year.
Nick Jones placed 8th in the shot put with a provisional qualifying heave of 55-9.75, which is about three feet short of his automatic-qualifying throw of last week.
Kevin Johnson ran his 2nd best time of the year in the 60 meter hurdles, a provisional time of 8.21 and he missed making the finals by only 3 one-thousandths of a second!
No one else had national qualifying performances in NYC, although others did come close: sophomore
Sydney Smith tied her PR in the 60 meter dash and is only one/tenth of a second from the provisional time; Paris Robertson ran his 2nd fastest time of the season in the 60 meter dash, only 6 one/hundredths off the provisional time;
Jordan Geary had his 2nd best time of the season and is only 75 one/hundredths off the provisional time.
Lubbock Highlights
Tyler Fleet tossed a PR and provisional qualifying throw in the weight throw - a distance of 57-11.75. It was the only national qualifying performance in Lubbock for ACU, but there were several other PR's for ACU athletes:
Chloe Susset in finishing 2nd in the 3,000 meter run with a 10:41.83; freshman Tara Riley with a shot put of 38-10.5 to finish 6th; Alyse Goldsmith, winning the 5,000 meter run in 18:32.62 - lapping every other runner in the field;
Lauren Atkinson breaking one minute for the first time at ACU with a 59.99 in the 400 meter dash; and runners in the 5,000 meter run -
William Pike, with a 15:53.27 to finish 2nd and freshman Erik Forrister to finish 4th with a 16:04.41.
The ACU team will take off next weekend off, unless a meet is found for the multi-athletes to compete.
