MOREHEAD, Ky. – The Morehead State outdoor track & field team picked up right where it left off during its indoor season as the Eagles had top-10 finishes in nine of its 12 events at Friday's Eastern Kentucky Spring Invitational at the Tom Samuels Track in Richmond, Ky.
There were several standout performances.
Senior
Lucy Singleton won the 800-meter run by three and a half seconds in 2:14.80, 76-hundredths of a second off her "pr". Freshman
Mark Whitener posted the fastest 100-meter dash time by an Eagle in 16 years (11.0) to finish fifth in his race. Junior
Kaylyn Holman dropped 4.24 seconds off her "pr" in the 800m to place third. The top women's 4x400-meter relay team placed second in 4:03.75, just under a second faster than what it did at the Ohio Valley Conference indoor championship meet three and a half weeks ago, and freshman
Weston Blair bounced back from a sub-par performance at the OVCs to take second in the 800m in 1:59.16.
"Mark had a wind-assisted 'pr' in the 100m," MSU head coach
Clay Dixon said. "Lucy nearly tied her 'pr' in windy conditions and won overall. Kaylyn ran a four-second 'pr' in the same windy conditions. They both have a lot more they can improve upon.
"(The) women's 4x4 is looking to do some big things this season," he added. "(We are) just needing a few more weeks and that perfect-weather day."
In total, the team had 19 top-10 finishes. Last year at the meet, that number was 18.
MSU finished fourth among the 11 intercollegiate men's squads with 42 points. The University of Charleston (W.Va.) won the title with 151 points, followed by host Eastern Kentucky with 135 points and Union, Ky., with 68 points. Lincoln Memorial, Tenn. (37); Xavier, Ohio (36); Pikeville, Ky. (32); Berea, Ky. (26); Spalding, Ky. (24); Rio Grande, Ohio (19) and Bellarmine (zero) rounded out the field.
The Eagle women were fifth in the 10-team field of collegians. Dayton won the title with 170 points. Charleston was second with 149, followed by EKU with 87, Xavier with 59, MSU with 42, LMU with 37, Berea with eight, Bellarmine with one and Pikeville did not score.
Several athletes had "pr's". In addition to Whitener and Holman, that group included: junior
Natalie Curry in the 1,500-meter run, and junior
Abby Taylor and redshirt sophomore
Christiana Brittian in the 3,000-meter run.
"Natalie ran like a 30-second 'pr' in the 1,500m," Dixon noted. "(Freshman)
Meredith Campbell, Abby and Christiana all looked great in the 3K. Abby and Christiana both ran 'pr's. Meredith led the entire thing but the girl who ended up winning just sat on her and made her do all the work in the wind. Regardless, this meet for them was just to get the legs used to racing again for next week."
One of the most impressive performances came from Whitener, who was running his first collegiate 100m. During the indoor season, he posted the team's fifth-best 60-meter dash time in history in 7.17.
"That race felt amazing," he said. "What was different about this race was I just fixed the way I ran by running my own race instead of going off of what others are doing during the race, whether that's trying to match someone's foot speed or even popping up way too early during the drive phase. I stayed way more patient this time and focused on my own race."
Singleton picked up where she left off in the indoor season, when she won the OVC title in the mile. That was the team's first championship in any event since 2003.
The women's 800m had three top-10 finishers in Singleton, Holman and junior
Lydia Bauer, who placed ninth in 2:35.91. Junior
Casey Skaggs crossed the line in 13th in 2:56.18.
"We have just really been hitting speed in practice as well as just getting in quality runs. I went into the race with the mentality that I could run a season best," Holman said. "I went out hard (the) first 600m and just tried to go with it for that last 200m. It was pretty windy out, so hopefully, in better conditions, I can get under the 2:20 mark."
The men's version of that race featured four top-10 performers. Blair went under 1:59.99 for the second time in his career. Freshmen
Carter Lamb and
Carter Hurley both flirted with a sub-2-minute effort but fell just short. Lamb was fifth in 2:00.89 and Hurley was sixth in 2:00.96. Sophomore
Brady Baker claimed ninth in 2:09.01. The winning time was put forth by an unattached runner (Ben Dunkle in 1:57.30), so Blair was the fastest collegian.
Campbell, Taylor and Brittian finished 2-3-4 in the 3,000m. Campbell crossed the line in 10:34.57, with Taylor in 10:38.24 and Brittian in 10:56.39. The Cincinnati Elite Track Club's Shelby Nolan won the race in 10:25.31. In 2024, Taylor was eighth in 10:46.79.
On the men's side, four Eagles cracked the top 10, led by sophomore
Aidan Whitsell in sixth in 9:09.67, with freshman
Liam Parido in seventh in 9:12.05, freshman
Brody Coleman in eighth in 9:15.56, sophomore
Keghan Thompson in ninth in 9:30.06 and senior
Austin Montgomery in 13th in 9:46.74. Last year, Whitsell placed 11th in 9:19.63.
Sophomore
Ginger Hayden leaped one inch farther in the long jump than she did at the meet last spring (4.91m/16-'01.50") but dropped five spots from that performance to place seventh. Sophomore
Derril Carr had the opposite result. Last year, he was 10th in the 200-meter dash in 23.29. On Friday, he was seventh in 23.79.
The women's 200m race featured six Eagles. Freshman
Olivia Miles topped the squad in 13th in 27.46, with freshman
Aaliyah Rodgers in 14th in 27.62, freshman
Mia Underwood in 19th in 28.27, redshirt freshman
Lauren Gooderson in 23rd in 28.54, sophomore
Cheyenne Stark in 25th in 28.69 and freshman
Brooklyn Boyce in 27th in 28.96.
Outside of Curry's time reduction, the Eagles did not have much success in the 1,500m. Sophomore
Taylor Allen was 26th in 5:10.65. Sophomore
Lani Baskett was 31st in 5:43.69, Curry was 32nd in 5:44.30 and junior
Hope Harris was 36th in 5:49.78. Allen placed fifth in 4:57.78 at the 2024 meet.
On the men's side, the story was the same. Redshirt senior
Wes Grogan was 18th in 4:07.44, classmate
Jacob Vogelpohl was 27th in 4:15.90, freshman
Preston Glassco was 37th in 4:25.47 and sophomore
Garrett West was 40th in 4:28.72. Last March, Vogelpohl finished eighth in 4:03.44.
Freshman sprinter
Maryah Counts ran for the first time since last June. She and teammates Rodgers, Underwood and Miles in the 4x400m relay covered the distance in 4:03.75 to place second. The men's 4x400m quartet of Baker, Hurley, Parido and Blair was third in 3:41.81. Last year's combination of West,
Micah Gray, Carr and
Sam Lucas was third in 3:40.06.
One of the MSU men's (Lamb, Carr,
Tate Glass and Whitener) and one of the MSU women's (Boyce, Holman, Gooderson and Stark) 4x400m entries just ran the first three legs and then withdrew from the race and earned a DNF.
"The relay was just to get some speed," Holman said. "I wish we would have been able to run all four legs, but we still benefited from doing it."
Next weekend a handful of Eagles will travel to St. Louis for the Washington (Mo.) Distance Carnival. That meet will take place on both Thursday, Mar. 27 and Friday, Mar. 28.
