Washburn University held its first indoor track and field meet Dec. 4. The Washburn Alumni Invitational took place from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Student athletes competed against Friends University, Hastings University, Northwest Kansas University, Oklahoma City University and St. Mary University.

The men’s track team finished off with six individual wins, two NCAA provisional marks and an indoor facility record. The women’s track team finished with eight individual wins, three school records and an NCAA provisional mark.

“You know, one of our main focuses is always high scores. Score as high as we can at a conference meet, that’s our first goal in track. So getting the team ready for that one meet if always out goal. For track indoor or outdoor, its have meets all season and then you get one chance to to really score a lot of points,” said head coach Cameron Babb. “So meets like this, it’s great to see our kids do really well, but we’re not really concerned about scores or anything like that. So really that’s the goal. Is scoring as many points as we can at the conference meet and see if we can get a lot of them qualified to National meet on top of that. Those will probably always been our focuses in indoor and outdoor track.”

Senior long jumper Tom Haug won his event with an NCAA provisional mark of 2.05m. Which also means he broke a record for the indoor facility. Haug was pleased with his start but is looking for more.

“For indoor I’m definitely hoping to beat my indoor record so that’s 2.11m so I’m hoping I get above that so that’d be 6.11m or higher.It’s pretty good, a decent mark to start off the season. I am excited to see where it goes from here,” Haug said.

Performances like Haug’s are encouraging for the beginning of a new season.

“We never see the best marks of the year in this first meet in December. So we assume it is only going to get better after this. To see kids hit such big marks week one in December is very promising,” Babb said. “By the time February rolls around hopefully we will get them all sharpened back up and ready to go to that conference meet and do something really special.”

While the meet was the first where fans were allowed in the new indoor facility the athletes themselves were a big part in creating the atmosphere.. “During a meet I like to have my teammates watching and kind of cheering me on. I tried to start a slow clap for one of my jumps today. Doing something like that, just getting the crowd into it is a lot of fun.” Haug said..

As the field events began to slow down, the running events began to pick up.

Freshman sprinter Katelyn Jones competed in the 400m with a time of 1:00:41 coming in 2nd place. Jones also competed in the 4x400m with a time of 3:58:38 coming in 1st place.

“My teammates are really awesome. They’re a very supportive group of people. No matter what it may be, they saw that I was a little nervous today and it being my first meet. They went out of their way to make sure that I was doing okay,” Jones said.“I love every single one of them and they are just great teammates through and through.”

Both teams have made quite a stride in the first meet with a long way to go. Everyone is getting ready for the next meet and looking forward to conference and even nationals. Hitting high points at the very beginning of the season, coaches are excited to see where this team goes.

“Something I really want to do before the season ends is be able to go to conference and compete well in the open 400,” Jones said.“I know that’s something that we’re all really wanting this year. So it’d be really fun to be able to go do that with my teammates.”

With a bigger team from years past coaches are excited about the chances the team has to accomplish those goals.
“I think our strength is that we are versatile and that we have depth in a lot of the event areas. We have sprinters, we have hurtlers, we have jumpers, we have distance athletes, and throwers so the fact that we can put people in almost all the events is really good for us,” Babb said. “Our sprinters looked good today. Our jumpers looked good today. We held a lot of our distant kids out, so we only saw a few of them run, but the ones that did run did well. So I think just our versatility and our ability to put people everywhere is what we are going to lean on this year.”

The team will be back in the Washburn Indoor Athletic Facility Jan. 15, 2022 for the Washburn Rust Buster.

Full meet results below.

Edited by: Kyle Manthe

Men’s Results
60m – Prelims
Connor Last – 6th – 6.93 – PR
Eric Patterson, Jr. – 7th – 7.02 – PR
Josh Hopkins – 8th – 7.07 – PR

60m – Finals
Connor Last – 3rd – 6.92 – PR
Eric Patterson, Jr. – 7th – 7.09
Josh Hopkins – 8th – 7.24

200m
Hunter Hess – 6th – 22.51 – PR

400m
Romain Henry – 1st – 49.01
Jacob Herr – 2nd – 51.20 – PR
Hunter Hess – 3rd – 51.22
Giovani Reinerio – 7th – 54.60 – PR

Mile
Nathan Gray – 2nd – 4:18.90 – PR
Quinn Buessing – 11th – 4:35.99 – PR

5000m
Collen Mclain – 1st – 14:45.12 – PR

60m hurdles
Romain Henry – 1st – 8.11

High jump
Tom Haug – 1st – 2.05m (6-08.75) – NCAA Provisional

Pole Vault
Zac Chandler – 1st – 4.58m (15-00.25)

Long jump
Connor Last – 1st – 7.61m (24-11.75) – WU Record – PR – NCAA Provisional – Facility Record (7.30m (23-11.50)
Josh Hopkins – 2nd – 7.11m (23-04.00)

Shot Put
Mitch Miller – 2nd – 15.11m (49-07.00) – PR
Sam Stranathan – 3rd – 14.51m (47-07.25)
Je’Shon Edwards – 5th – 12.61m (41-04.50) – PR
Jaden Magana – 6th – 12.34m (40-06.00) – PR
Patrick Altenor – 7th – 12.17m (39-11.25) – PR
Logan Ayers – 9th – 11.72m (38-05.50) – PR

Weight throw
Sam Stranathan – 2nd – 16.43m (53-11.00)
Mitch Miller – 3rd – 15.48m (50-09.50) – PR
Jaden Magana – 6th – 14.12m (46-04.00) – PR
Patrick Altenor – 7th – 12.58m (41-03.25) – PR
Je’Shon Edwards – 8th – 11.03m (36-02.25) – PR

Women’s Results
60m Preliminaries
Isabella Hohl – 1st – 7.64 – WU Record – – PR – NCAA Provisional
Alyssa Hutcherson – 2nd – 7.75 – PR
Darian Hillebert – 9th – 8.00

60m Finals
Isabella Hohl – 1st – 7.67
Alyssa Hutcherson – 2nd – 7.78

200m
Isabella Hohl – 1st – 25.48 – WU Record – PR
Darian Hillebert – 2nd – 26.12
Alyssa Hutcherson – 6th – 26.66 – PR
Lyndsay Stinson – 10th – 27.12 – PR

400m
Chia Okoro – 1st – 57.22 – WU Record – PR
Katelyn Jones – 2nd – 1:00.41 – PR
Lyndsay Stinson – 3rd – 1:00.53

60m hurdles
Kylie Ray – 5th – 9.89 – PR

4×400
Chia Okoro, Lyndsay Stinson, Katelyn Jones, Isabella Hohl – 1st – 3:58.38

High Jump
Skyler Saunders – 1st – 1.65m (5-05.00)

Pole Vault
Virgi Scardanzan – 1st – 3.79m (12-05.25)
Tassilyn Bolin – 2nd – 3.49m (11-05.25)
Natalie Lanman – 3rd – 3.49m (11-05.25)

Long Jump
Alyssa Hutcherson – 1st – 5.51m (18-01.00) – PR
Skyler Saunders – 3rd – 5.16m (16-11.25) – PR

Shot Put
JahnAsia Anderson – 3rd – 10.77m (35-04.00) – PR

Weight Throw
JahnAsia Anderson – 3rd – 12.98m (42-07.00) – PR
Tyler Smith – 5th – 12.34m (40-06.00) – PR