Air Force's Regan Rogers and Adams State's Ackiesha Burnette were two of the athletes posting notable performances at Friday evening's Air Force Holiday Open. Photos by Alan Versaw.
If you take a look at the college indoor leaderboards, you'll find out just how good the Air Force Holiday Open was for a season-opening indoor meet. Here's a gleaning of what the meet turned up.
Cale Simmons, Air Force Academy - Simmons currently leads the men's DI indoor pole vault rankings at 17-8.5. Three of his teammates currently sit among the top12, and another in the top 20. Adding to the impressiveness of the mark is the fact that Simmons didn't even go out on misses. He cleared 17-8.5, racked his pole, and called it an evening. There's more where the 17-8.5 came from.
Brian Ford, Air Force Academy - Ford's #2 all-time Air Force Academy weight throw mark of 61-0.25 parks him at #17 on the DI national leaderboard. I have just one question--even with a metric-to-English conversion, how do you mark a weight throw with that kind of precision? By the way, I'm not really expecting an answer to that question.
Evan Fortney, Air Force Academy - Mr. Fortney was fighting for a spot on the roster at Air Force and came up with an altitude-converted 4:20.32 mile. That's good enough for #49 in the nation in DI at the moment. Expect to see more of Mr. Fortney in Air Force blue.
Kobi Rex, unattached - Rex is an Air Force high jumper but used a season of indoor eligibility at Harvard. So, his 6-10.75, which would have tied him at #11 in the nation for DI, doesn't go on the board owing to this being a redshirt season for Rex, but it was a solid mark nevertheless.
Regan Rogers, Air Force Academy - The 5-7 mark she posted in the high jump puts her in the 20s in the high jump rankings for DI.
Kassie Gurnell, Air Force Academy - Gurnell goes straight to #1 on the DI leaderboard in the triple jump with her mark of 40-6.75
Adrianna Dong, Air Force Academy - Dong joins three Fresno State throwers from Friday's meet in the 20s/low 30s range in the weight throw rankings with a heave of 58-6.75.
Mostly, however, this meet was populated with DII athletes. Since DII uses the automatic/provisional standards for qualifying for nationals, we'll look only at those who posted qualifying marks from Friday (but, as it turns out, that's a lot to look at).
Starting with the men:
Chaz Butler, Adams State - The freshman gets within .04 of an auto qualifier with his 6.79 (altitude adjusted) in the 60.
Gabe Proctor, Western State - An altitude-adjusted 8:12.60 is only a provision mark but ranks at the top of the nation in DII coming out of the weekend.
Wesley Lavong, Adams State - A 55-4.25 in the shot put puts Lavong at #4 in the nation with a provisional qualifying mark.
Ackiesha Burnette, Adams State - Burnette's 8.79 60 meter hurdle time (after the altitude adjustment) leaves her with a provisional qualifying mark and sitting at #7 in the national rankings.
Barbara Szabo, Western State - Szabo returns to familiar territory atop the DII national high jump rankings. This year she starts the season at 5-10.75, but that's probably not a ceiling. The mark is an auto qualifier.
Katie Kruger, Adams State - Kruger eked her way past the provisional qualifer mark with a shot put of 44-9.75.
For a meet where most of the teams sat the lion's share of their top performers, it was a pretty nice evening of indoor track and field.