RICHMOND, Ky. – Despite the misnaming of the event, the Morehead State outdoor track & field teams' day at Friday's EKU Springtime Invitational on the Tom Samuels track at Eastern Kentucky University was a huge success. Eagle athletes set nine outdoor season ''pr's", earned 13 podium finishes, collected five more top-10 finishes and won a heat.
And the men outscored the University of Kentucky, 16 to 13.
Friday's competition featured drizzling rain, overcast skies and temperatures that hovered in the 50s, unfavorable conditions for sprinters and jumpers. Despite the weather, half of those who repeated their events from last weekend's 49er Classic in Charlotte, N.C., improved their marks.
"(We're) coming away happy about today. Today was mostly a work meet. We didn't have crazy high expectations," head coach
Clay Dixon said. "We had a couple personal bests and a majority of the team had performances that were within a second or two of the previous week when we had perfect weather."
Although the conditions were poorly suited for the short events, the Eagles stood out in those competitions.
A pair of MSU runners in the 400-meter dash were especially noteworthy. Redshirt junior
Micah Gray was fourth in 53.12, 1.32 seconds faster than last week's performance and 2.04 seconds better than his top indoor time this winter.
Freshman
Cheyenne Stark was 11th in her event in 1:07.17, dropping 1.16 seconds from the 49er Classic and 5.37 seconds off her top indoor time.
Freshman
Derril Carr was the team's only heat winner, which he did in the 200-meter dash. He also was second in his heat in the 100-meter dash. Overall, he was seventh in the 100m in 11.56 and 10th in the 200m in 23.29. In both cases, he was one one-hundredth of a second off last week's time.
Listen to Carr discuss his day on X (Twitter).
Freshman horizontal jumper
Ginger Hayden did not record better distances than last week but did improve her placing. She was second in the long jump in 4.89 (16'00.5") and third in the triple jump in 10.29 (33'09.00"). At Charlotte, she was 11th in the former event and 14th in the latter.
Hear Hayden talk about her jumps on X (Twitter).
"Today was a bit cold for the shorter events, but I was pleased with how the 100m, 200m, 400m and jumps performed," Dixon said.
The Eagles were able to score key points in the 1,500-meter runs. On the women's side, freshman
Taylor Allen was fifth in 4:57.78, with sophomore
Kaylyn Holman eighth in 5:06.71. Holman sliced 14-hundredths of a second off her "pr". Junior
Megan Bush followed in 10th in 5:14.18, with redshirt junior
Jennifer Ramirez in 14th in 5:24.34. Senior
Laikin Tarlton did not finish the race.
For the guys, senior
Toby Cook was sixth in 4:01.88, nearly two seconds faster than last week. Redshirt junior
Jacob Vogelpohl finished eighth in 4:03.44, with senior
Kyler Stewart a second back in ninth in 4:04.44 and fifth-year runner
Jarrett Forrest a little farther behind in 11th in 4:06.55.
Despite leading his heat for the bulk of the first three laps, freshman
Keghan Thompson crossed the line in 17th (overall) in 4:19.63. Freshman
Brady Baker was one spot back in 18th in 4:33.67, with senior
Austin Montgomery in 19th in 4:35.48.
The men had better overall finishes in the 800-meter run. Led by freshman
Garrett West and junior
Sam Lucas, MSU scored five points. West was sixth in 2:01.31, with Lucas in seventh in 2:01.64. Lucas cut more than two seconds off his time in Charlotte. Freshman
Asher Jack was 12th in 2:18.95, with Forrest pulling out during the race to round out the Eagle entrants.
Freshman
Emily Spradlin led the women in the event by placing 13th in 2:45.20. Sophomore
Hope Harris was next in 14th in 2:46.05. Redshirt sophomore Isabella Almodovar was a late addition to the field. And despite an injury that has kept her out of action for all but one meet this season, toed the starting line, but was unable to finish.
The men also had a strong performance in the 3,000-meter run. Senior
Peyton Fairchild led a trio of Eagles finishing in order, claiming seventh in 8:58.58. Freshman
Armando Montes followed in 8th in 9:10.37, with senior
Justin Bland in 9th in 9:13.45.
Freshman
Aidan Whitsell placed 11th but had a massive drop over his previous race last week. Whitsell covered last Saturday's race in 9:47.04 and cut his time down to 9:19.63 on Friday. Senior
Alex Murray also chopped significant time off his performance last week, finishing 13th in 9:20.99, dropping 10.68 seconds. Freshman
Noah Bunting could not continue the trend. After setting a "pr" in last week's race, on Friday he finished in 17th in 9:45.73.
Sophomore
Abby Taylor capped off the Eagles' day in individual events as she placed eighth in the 3,000m in 10:46.79. Junior
Cloe Copas followed in 10th in 11:28.73. Freshman
Lani Baskett was 11th in 12:06.77, trimming nearly nine seconds off her most recent time. Sophomore
Casey Skaggs rounded out the team by claiming 14th in 13:12.01.
MSU entered its first 4x400-meter relay team of the year and the foursome of West, Gray, Carr and Lucas finished third in 3:40.06, an impressive performance in an event the group had not practiced before the race.
Morehead State's men finished in fourth with 16 points. Lindsey Wilson won the meet by a sizable margin, collecting 139 points. Host Eastern Kentucky was next with 70 points, followed by Northern Kentucky with 36 points. Kentucky finished last with 13 points.
The women's competition was much closer. Kentucky edged Northern Kentucky by seven points (97 to 90). Eastern Kentucky was third with 41 points, followed closely by Lindsey Wilson with 40 points and MSU with 13 points.
Morehead State will have some time off before returning for its next meet, the Jim Vargo Bellarmine Invitational, on Friday, April 5.
"We get a 14-day gap to focus on training and recovery before we start the big push for the rest of the outdoor season," Dixon concluded.
