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Post by Cap'n on Mar 26, 2024 12:18:20 GMT -6
Wow!! That was a fast, fast anchor leg
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Post by acutrackfan on Apr 1, 2024 16:18:05 GMT -6
Going back and looking at the results from this past weekend, there were more highlights than I first suspected. Here are some of the big things:
WOMEN
-Eliza Lemberga, a mid-term recruit, has been a huge addition to ACU. She placed 11th in the heptathlon, with the 3rd-best total in ACU history (and her personal best total) and moves up to #1 in the WAC, although we will have to wait until the big Bryan Clay Multi-Event meet in Cali to see if any other western US WAC athletes move ahead of her. -Katelyn Coldicott, ran well in the 10K late on Thursday night -- placing 9th in a good field, with a PR time as well. She will be competitive for points in the WAC meet in that event. -Ja'Dasia Sims placed 2nd in the "B" high jump with a jump of 5-8.75 -- her outdoor PR, which puts her #2 in the WAC. She also ran her fastest open 400 of the year at the Texas State Bobcat Inv -- a meet that runs concurrently with the Texas Relays. -Ella Anttila placed 7th in the "A" triple jump with a season best jump of 41-10, about 2 feet below her PR - ranks her #1 in the WAC. -Courtney Latham ran her 2nd best 400 hurdle race ever with a 1:03.70 putting her into the top 5 in the WAC -- sure hope she gets down to 1:01 range this year. -Kaitlyn Callaway placed 11th in the "A" javelin throw, going up against a All-American studded field.
MEN -The highlight for me was a really good 10K race for Kevin Castruita (2nd place) and Levi Chambers (4th place). Kevin ran a PR of 30:13. He came to ACU after a "lost" year at Chicago State (the HC literally resigned just before the season began -- they had no assistant coaches, so a GA acted as HC for the whole year). He came to ACU as a 800/1500 guy and has dropped his times in the 10K down from 35 minute range to just over 30 minutes. He will vie for a top-3 spot at the WAC championship. Levi has come back from an injury in the WAC indoor meet that caused him to redshirt last year. He is running almost as fast as 2 years ago, when he placed at the WAC outdoor championship in the 10K. And, over in San Marcos, Samuel Lanham and O'Brien Verdin were both running big PR's in the 10K as well and both of them move into the top-8 in the WAC. -Colt Cooper (yep, the starting DE on the ACU football team Colt Cooper) gets a PR of 173-3 in the discus while placing 2nd in the "B" discus and moving to -Gabe Embree ran a solid steeplechase against a good field moving into the top-8 in the WAC. -Garrison Shindler ran a PR in the Jerry Thompson Invitational mile of 4:07.5, getting 7th place in a good race -- moved as high as 3rd late in the race. Garrison has improved so much in his years at ACU.
Overall, it was a pretty good weekend for the 'Cats.
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Post by texas48 on Apr 1, 2024 16:32:55 GMT -6
Thanks, TrackFan! Texas Relays are always fun to watch!
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Post by acutrackfan on Apr 2, 2024 8:54:53 GMT -6
They are particularly fun to watch in person. And, while I was there for a dinner on Tuesday evening prior to the meet, I took some pics of the interior of Memorial Stadium -- just wanted to see what a stadium that seats over 100,000 looks like when it is empty.
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Post by acutrackfan on Apr 2, 2024 10:19:12 GMT -6
One last Texas Relays note -- probably the most impressive thing I saw at the meet this year was a HS girl - Elizabeth Leachman. She ran in the Invitational women's 5K against a field of college runners and blew away the field, while running the fastest 5K for a HS student in American history. And, she is just a HS sophomore. Some notes on her:
-She won the Texas Relays 5K by 35 seconds as she set the new HS record of 15:25.27. The collegians in the field were good. Her time would have won the D1 5K by 5 seconds and the D1 winner was Parker Valby, the runner from Florida who has been hailed as the next great American distance runner. She ran the most even pace I have ever seen -- her 400 meter splits were so stinking easy. The race was being broadcast and she would smile and wave at the camera as she ran hit the finish line area on each lap. She looked like she was not even extending herself one bit.
-Last spring, she won the 5A 1600 title for Boerne Champion -- winning the race by almost 10 seconds (at least 50 meters in a distance race). This past fall, she won the Foot Locker XC national HS championships in San Diego. This past March, she set a new HS record for the 5K indoors of 15:28 at the New Balance indoor track in Boston -- breaking the record set by Parker Valby (see above). Now, she has broken the HS record in the 5K indoors and outdoors. I see on one of the primary HS results databases that she is primarily running the 800 and the 3200 as her HS meets this year. I see in results that at one HS 3200 meter race, she lapped everyone in the field (not that unusual at a HS race), but also lapped everyone in the field twice, except for the 2nd place runner and she almost lapped her twice.
-Another interesting facet of the Leachman story is that she is NOT a long-long distance training. Many of the top-level distance runners train at very high mileage -- high schoolers at 70-80 miles a week and collegians at 100 miles a week or more. After Leachman struggled with tendonitis last year, she and her coach drew up a different training plan, where she runs about 30 miles a week, with much more emphasis on sprinting and "resistance" running -- running in a swimming pool, for instance. And, it certainly seems to be working.
Where do I think Leachman will go to college to run? At this point, I seriously doubt that she will compete in college at all. I wonder if she will go pro before graduating HS. Of course, with NIL these days, she could make more money running in college than she can make running professionally, so she still might go somewhere for at least a year or 2 of college.
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Post by acutrackfan on Apr 15, 2024 4:15:04 GMT -6
Pretty lowkey week for ACU T&F with a partial squad headed to Tarleton and a small squad headed over to the Warhawk Classic across town at McMurry. Many team members trained through this past weekend in anticipation of the Michael Johnson Invitational at Baylor this coming weekend. Going over the results I did find some pretty encouraging performances:
WOMEN -Bella Evans ran a PR in the 800 of 2:15.14. I don't know if Bella will run both the 800 and 1500 at conference, but she is competitive for points in both events. -Courtney Latham ran a PR in the 400 hurdles of 1:02.96 - she still needs to drop that time another second to be a competitive for conference points, but she is getting close. -Avery Myrick - threw a PR of 138-2 in the discus -- still needs to add several feet to that distance to be conference competitive, but she is already right there in the hammer and javelin -Luize Velmere - PR of 40-0.75 in the triple jump and first time over 40 feet - should contend for a top-5 spot at conference -Chesni Scott - freshman redshirt who is throwing the discus very well -- a season best of 169-8 throwing unattached, which would contend for a conference win if she were not redshirting. Starting next year, she has the chance to contend for some all-time best throws for ACU.
MEN -Ethan Christian gets a PR in the 110H of 14.86 -- important for a decathlete to keep improving PR marks and then eventually put all of those improved marks together at the conference meet. -Throwers continue to look good -- Athan Huelskamp got a season best in the discus of 175-11; Colt Cooper had the 2nd best discus throw of his career (172-2) and Stone Smith a season best of 155-3 -- Athan and Colt should contend for a top-3 spot and Stone should be right on the verge of scoring at conference. -Garrison Shindler - ran his first 800 of the season and ran a 1:53.33 -- about 1.5 seconds off his PR. Curious to see if Garrison runs both the 800 and 1500 at conference, because he is capable of scoring in both events -Hayden Norwich is another freshman thrower who is going to be good next year when he throws for ACU. Throwing "unattached" at both meets this weekend, Hayden wins the shot put at Tarleton with a throw of 54-2.75 and gets a good discus throw of 165-8 as well. Remember that male throwers have to throw heavier implements in college than in HS (4 pounds heavier in the SP and 8 ounces in the discus) and redshirting as a freshman is a huge advantage to getting used to those heavier implements.
It looks like Kailey Roskop is redshirting the outdoor season -- she is a discus thrower/hammer thrower and she competed unattached at McMurry. Also it appears that Kenan Reil and Sean Cooksey might be redshirting as well -- out 2 top male recruits this year. Kenan has struggled with a recurring injury that did not allow him to hurdle at the indoor conference meet (he still ran well on legs of the 4x400 and distance medley relays). I heard that if he was not better by mid-season, he would go ahead and redshirt. Sean Cooksey ran at the Wes Kittley meet at home and at the Masked Rider at Tech (2nd meet of the year), but I hear that he might have been injured during warmups at the Lubbock meet. I know that he has not competed since that meet. Add to ACU's best male jumper, Donovan Ramirez, requiring surgery last fall and having to redshirt this spring, ACU men have lost a lot of firepower for this outdoor season.
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Post by acutrackfan on May 9, 2024 7:25:26 GMT -6
The WAC Championships start today in Orem, UT. I won't be there to see them in person, I am working a little meet over in Waco this weekend. This has been a very unusual season for ACU T&F, highlighted by the HC stepping down after the indoor season, but remaining on staff. While the job will not be posted until next week, there has already been interest in the post. But, the task at hand is competing well at the conference meet and I think ACU can be very competitive.
MEN - finished 5th last season. Right now, the team race looks like GCU and UTA fighting it out for the championship -- about 2-3 points separating them. Then, there is a bit of drop down to Southern Utah and SFA vying for 3rd. Moving to the next plateau, one finds UVU, ACU, Tarleton, UTRGV, and CBU tightly packed with only a 10-12 point variation between all 5 schools. Seattle has reserved the cellar again this year. I could see ACU finishing right at the top of that 3rd plateau (5th place), but I just don't see the 'Cats jumping up to that 2nd plateau. If ACU gets hit with some real disappointments, there is a chance that we could fall to the bottom of that plateau, all the way to 9th. However, when I look at the athletes we will depend on the most, I see a lot of experience.
Athletes we will depend on include the throwers - Athan Huelskamp, Colt Cooper, Rylan Smart, Stone Smith and Christian Morales. Freshman Hayden Norwich came to ACU planning to redshirt and he has thrown very well as a redshirt. The distance runners will be competitive - particularly Kevin Castruita, Levi Chambers, Garrison Shindler and Cooper Goggans (although these days the 800 is often lumped in with the sprinters). The sprint/hurdle corps has been hit hard by bad luck all year -- Sean Cooksey tears his Achilles in the 2nd meet of the year (has already been given a medical redshirt); Kenan Reil ends up taking a medical RS outdoors due to bursitis; Harrison Manuel gets injured in the 1st outdoor meet of the year in terrible weather and ends up retiring from the sport; Charlie-Lee Alliston has to have surgery to repair an injury that occurred last year; transfer EJ Stubbs never gets eligible. How bad is it? ACU will not even field a 4x100 relay at conference and when the year began, I truly believed we could have a conference top-3 sprint relay. Jumper Donovan Ramirez had to have surgery last fall and is just now able to train -- hopefully, he will bounce back well next season and we really did not have depth in the jumps. Decathletes Canaan Fairley and Ethan Christian should score well.
I hope to see the men climb up to 5th -- that would constitute an excellent performance for the 'Cats.
WOMEN - finished 6th place last season and has a valid chance of moving up in the standings. UVU, GCU, and UTA will fight it out for the title -- as few as 5 points separates the 3. UTRGV appears to be by itself in the 4th spot. The next tier of teams includes ACU, Tarleton, Southern Utah, and SFA, with ACU right at the top of this tier. And Utah Tech and Seattle will be a race to see who will "win" the cellar spot.
The sprinters will lead the way for ACU - grad transfer Sheian Walters, JaDasia Sims, Savannah McCaleb, But the female sprinters have not been able to avoid the "bad luck bug" - transfer Brianna Brand was injured in the early season and I believe has already received a medical redshirt; D'Anna Smith has apparently left the team after struggling academically; and some of the other sprinters have underperformed and I don't think some ofthem might even be back next year. Just like the men, ACU will not even field a 4x100 relay this year - OUCH! The distance runners have performed rather well this year, but have the misfortune of competing in events where the WAC has a large number of nationally-ranked athletes (although you could see Katelyn Coldicott and Bella Evans slip in for some points). The throwers should score points - Kaitlyn Callaway and Avery Myrick. Going into the season, ACU expected to redshirt the freshmen throwers Chesni Scott and Sterling Glenn (who should be big contributors next year), but then Kailey Roskop chose to redshirt outdoors as well. ACU has a strong corps of jumpers - Ella Anttila and Luize Velmere, plus Jadasia Sims in the HJ.
Just like the men, the primary potential scorers for the women are seasoned competitors. If everything fell in place perfectly, I could see the women moving up to 4th place, but I think that 5th is very possible with a solid performance.
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Post by Outsider on May 11, 2024 17:59:13 GMT -6
Can't wait for your rundown Trackfan but looks like we had some really good performances at the WAC Championships in Utah. Would love to see that grow.
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Post by Cap'n on May 11, 2024 20:42:09 GMT -6
Good meet for the women. They placed 5th and had some very good performances. The 4x400 ran a nice 3:38 and won going away. For what it’s worth, we were the top football school, lol. The men finished 7th thanks to decent performances by the throwers. Best men’s race of the day was the 800 m. won by Cooper Goggins. He ran a beautiful tactical race and just blew away the field down the stretch.
What I did not like was the 5k and 10k and Steeplechase. UVU (men) entered 8-9 runners who sprinted to the front and jammed up the pack. If they were not the host school, I doubt that they would have that many competing. They ended up scoring roughly 60 points in those 3 races. The lead runners could not be attacked without exerting too much energy trying to pass 6 or 8 runners running 2 or 3 abreast. I think a rules change is in order that limits the number of competitors on the track for any one heat and limits the number of runners per school per heat. 40-50 runners on the track at once seems too many.
By the way, this is perfectly within the rules. I just don’t like it.
But I’m no expert. Ask Trackfan.
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Post by Outsider on May 14, 2024 19:38:09 GMT -6
Yep, so the women finish 5th and the men finish 7th.
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Post by acutrackfan on May 15, 2024 15:31:38 GMT -6
Outsider, sorry to get this posted late. This is a very busy time of the year for me. While ACU was at the WAC Championships, I was working another D-1 conference meet and I am already deep in preparation for an upcoming national track meet. But, here goes a quick overview of the ACU at the WAC meet. Generally, ACU did pretty well overall at the championships. In my mind, I tend to divide the standings into 2 categories -- the fully funded programs and the partially-funded programs and I am always love it when ACU finishes at the top of the partially funded schools and maybe even beats a fully-funded program or 2. I have also been following the whole "GCU/Seattle leaving for the WCC thing". Of course both schools will have still competed in the WAC T&F championships next school year. But, when the enter the WCC as members in 2025,they will be shopping around for a place for their T&F teams to compete - the WCC does not sponsor T&F (indoors or outdoors) and from reading their site, they have no plans to add T&F as a sponsored sport. Maybe if CBU jumps to the WCC as well, the conference may decide to finally sponsor the sport.
MEN - I had predicted that the Wildcats would finish between 5th and 9th and they finished right in the middle of that tier -- 7th place. In looking at the results, I think they could have moved up one place if everything had fallen just right, but that 7th place finish was about where we could expect to finish. ACU finished with 71 points and 36 of those points came from throws, with Athan Huelskamp the high point man of the Wildcats with 16 points (1st in DT and 3rd in SP. Colt Cooper (4th in the DT), Sutton Welch (4th in the HT), and Christian Morales (4th in the javelin) all scored 5 points. Rylan Smart (5th in the hammer) and Stone Smith (8th in the DT) scored 4 points and 1 point, respectively.
The highlight on the track side was Cooper Goggans, as he won the 800. Cooper has seen dramatic improvement over the past 2 years -- enough improvement that he will compete in the West Prelim meet in 1.5 weeks. Spring points were sparse -- the only points coming from the 6th place 4x400 relay. Hurdles came through with 7 points in the 110H - Jeremy King (5th), Miguel Hall (7th) and Ryan Bornemeier (8th). There were 9 distance points in a conference that is in the top-10 of distance conferences in D-1 - Kevin Castruita (5th in the 10K), Garrison Shindler (7th in the 1500), Gabe Embree (7th in the steeple), and Levi Chambers (8th in the 10K). The decathlon provided the rest of the Wildcat points -- future star Canaan Fairley getting 4th and senior Ethan Christian getting 8th.
The next most important thing is to look at who will be gone from the roster next year. Levi Chambers and Ethan Christian are the only seniors who scored, but O'Brien Verdin had a good meet in the 10K and he is also a 5th year senior. There are several athletes who could take a COVID redshirt year, but they have finished their undergrad and I don't expect to see them back: Gabe Embree will be headed to med school; Cooper Goggans had planned to go to work, but his 1:48 in the 800 could draw interest from some schools were he to change his mind; Athan Huelskamp had planned to move back to Kansas and get a job, but his marks could draw interest from a school that is in Kansas - a school like Wichita St; Matthew Mills ran the leadoff leg on the 4x400, but has never been able to break into the points in the open 400 and could end up at someplace like UTSA or Texas State for that one year; and Jeremy King has decided to use his degree to get a job. I have been trying to find anyone who has entered the portal and it appears that Garrison Shindler has entered the portal and is wanting to get closer to home in Illinois. My biggest disappointment in the portal has undoubtedly been the loss of Hayden Norwich, who never scored a point for ACU -- redshirting this year. He competed "unattached" at several meets and just using his marks at those meets, he could have scored 6-10 points this year and in the future, I think he was going to be a terrific SP/DT combo thrower.
WOMEN - the women's team race went almost exactly to form, with ACU scoring 83 points and getting 5th - just where I have predicted. With a perfect meet, the Wildcats might have been able to score another 3-5 points, but that would have still left ACU in 5th place. ACU got good points from the jumps -- Ella Anttila winning the TJ, with Luize Velmere getting 3rd behind her and JaDasia Sims getting 2nd in the HJ (that's 24 points from 2 events). The sprinters did pretty well -- mostly due to Sheian Walters (a grad transfer from Angelo) getting 2nd in the 400, with JaDasia Sims placing 7th behind her. The 4x400 relay winning was one of the highlights of the meet -- with seniors Sheian Walters and Savannah McCaleb (who only missed the finals in the open 400 by a fraction of a second); and juniors JaDasia Sims & JaKaylon Sabbath. The middle distance runners came through big -- Riley Pyeatt in 3rd and Jess Reyes in 5th in the 800 and Bella Evans 3rd in the 1500. The Heptathlon is now a strength for the 'Cats, with Elize Lemberga getting 2nd in the hep and Natalie Poe finishing 4th. The distance crew just missed points - with Katelyn Coldicott getting 9th in the 10K and Peyton Bornstein getting 9th in the steeple. Only 2 throwers at the championships and both scored -- Katelyn Callaway getting 2nd in the javelin and Avery Myrick 7th in the discus.
Graduation and/or completion of eligibility is taking several key people - Ella Anttila, Sheian Walters, Savannah McCaleb, Katelyn Callaway, Paige Boucher (12th in the 100H), and Courtney Latham (9th in the 400H). Looks like the transfer portal will also hurt, as it looks like Riley Pyeatt (wants to get closer to her home state of Washington); Bella Evans (girlfriend of Garrison Shindler and may follow him and she is good enough to garner interest); and Jess Reyes (not sure why she has entered the portal -- she looked like a future key cog on the team). ACU has a great group of throwers who redshirted -- freshmen Chesni Scott and Sterling Glenn, plus upperclassman Kailey Roskop. The potential is there to have a great throws crew next year, IF they all stay depending on who the new HC may be and who they may retain on staff (will former HC Jerrod Cook be retained?).
All things considered, this year ended up a pretty solid year for the 'Cats. Injuries had an impact. The fact that the team is only partially funded and injuries can have an even more profound impact. The coaching change did not help. I also think that some of the scholarship non-producers have been cleared out, trying to leave some room for a new HC to be able to get in summertime recruits. Depending on how soon the new HC is hired, there may be a chance to find some reinforcements, but the transition will need to happen quickly.
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