Quick vacation rundown🏖️
Greetings from Florida
Hi folks, I’m currently on vacation and was planning on taking the week off, but I felt like I should at least fill you all in on what happened last week. Ideally, I wanted this in your inbox yesterday afternoon, but that didn’t go quite as planned, so here we are. I appreciate you all sticking with me despite my lack of consistency!
Nice weekend to podium🥉
Led by Chandler Gibbens’ distance sweep in both the 10,000m (29:40.92) and 5000m (13:48.39), the Hawks put up 117 points, which is their second most points scored by the program in championship history. Michael Joseph added a runner-up finish in the 400m, on a weekend when he also broke both the program and St. Lucia National Record, running 44.77 in the preliminaries. Devin Loudermilk secured another runner-up performance, clearing 7-2.25 in the high jump for silver. Andrew Saloga (17-7) and Jake Freidel (17-3) led a 2-3-4 Jayhawk finish in the pole vault. Patrick Larrison collected another All-Big 12 honor, finishing third in the shot put with a heave of 62-0.25, with fellow throwers Dimitrios Pavlidis (189-11) and Oleg Klykov (220-8) finishing second in the discus and third in the hammer. Alexander Jung capped off top-three finishes for the Jayhawks by taking third in the Decathlon, totaling 7671 points across ten events. On top of that, Kansas had fifteen additional scoring performances.
Additionally, the Kansas women had Rylee Anderson out-jump the rest of the conference, winning the high jump with a clearance of 6-0. Lona Latema added a silver in the 3000m steeplechase, with a time of 10:17.30. The Jayhawk women finished eighth as a team, with 46 points from nine different events.
Kansas State finished 8th on the men’s side and 7th on the women’s side, with Kade McCall taking second in the hammer, with a lengthy toss of 226-3. On the women’s side, Shalom Olotu was third in the long jump, with a best mark of 21-0.5, while Emma Robbins finished second in the hammer just like McCall, with a throw of 220-1. Urte Bacianskaite was the final Wildcat in the top three, finishing as the runner-up in the grueling Heptathlon, with 5541 points over the weekend.
Shockers go back-to-back🌾
The Wichita State Shockers are once again, the top dogs in the American Athletic Conference for the second consecutive year, holding off Houston yet again in crunch time. With two events to go, the Shockers were trailing Houston, but were able to score much needed points in the 5000m to jump back up 148-142. With that in mind, all the Shockers needed was to finish fifth or better for a share of the title, and they exceeded expectations. While the Cougars won the event like expected, the Shockers finished third and successfully defended their title from a year ago.
Wichita State had multiple top-three finishers, with Adrian Diaz-Lopez getting it done in the 10,000m, finishing second on a humid and hot morning in 31:33.24, which is a solid debut for the distance. Yuben Goncalves led a trio of Shockers into the finals of the 400mH, where he took third in 51.25. Clayton Duchatschek added another runner-up finish in the 3000m steeplechase, stopping the clock at 8:52.90. Brady Palen and Weston Lewis finished 2-3 in high jump, clearing 7-0.25 and 6-8.75 respectively. Goncalves added a runner-up finish in both the long and triple jump to his already impressive weekend, with a best mark of 24-3.5 and 50-0.5 in the horizontal jumps. Creighton Camp added ANOTHER runner-up finish—this time in the throw where his best mark came on his second throw, which was 185-6. The Decathlon duo of Nathan Vann and Adria Navajon gave the Shockers another 2-3 finish, scoring 7332 and 7064 points over the weekend.
On the women’s side, the 4x400m and Marissa Jensen (High Jump) each picked up six points, with the relay ending the weekend with a season best 3:40.67 and Jensen clearing 5-10.5. Samantha Marx brought home a silver in the javelin, saving her best for last and throwing 153-7 in her final throw of the competition. Destiny Masters was the lone Shocker champion of the weekend, as she won the Heptathlon in a new stadium record of 5557. The women placed 7th as a team with 59 points.
Sunflower State Highlights🌻
St. Thomas Aquinas senior Alex Waldie moved towards the top of the record books last Friday, where he ran 1:50.52 to win the 800m at the Eastern Kansas League meet. Waldie moved up to 5th all-time, and is sixth high schooler in state history to break 1:51.
Grant Pierce is having the season of his life, and he doesn’t seem like he’ll be slowing down anytime soon. Last week, Pierce broke the four-minute barrier in the 1600m, with a time of 3:59.91. This week, Pierce followed it up with a five-event regional meet, racing the 100m, 400m, 800m, 1600m, and 3200m, setting PR’s in four of the five events!
100m — 17.55
400m — 56.17
800m — 3:53.83
1600m — 3:53.83
3200m — 8:28.69
Cailie Logue, Girard graduate and Kansas legend won her twelfth and thirteenth Big 12 titles over the weekend, sweeping the 5000m (15:54.60) and 10,000m (34:28.86) for a pair of golds. Logue was also just 2.5 points shy from earning the high point scorer of the meet. Logue will try to qualify for the NCAA Championships next week in Sacramento, CA.
Emily Venters, Lawrence Free State graduate and another Kansas legend, continues to dominate as a Utah Ute, again in the 10,000m, winning the Pac-12 title over a talented field. This was the first conference title for Venters, and it’s been a long time coming!
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