The indoor track and field team traveled home from the Western Athletic Conference Indoor Championship Meet with the women’s team taking bronze and the men’s placing fifth, respectively.
Over the course of the weekend, there were 34 personal records broken, five individual conference titles won and two school records broken. Megan Kirby’s time of 8.52 broke 2015’s school record holder, Lexus Williams’ time of 8.62 and Jonathan Ply earned 5633 points in the Decathlon, breaking C. Vandendriessche’s school’s record from 2009 of 5,448 points.
On day one Payton Kirk was the first ACU WAC indoor champion with a long jump distance of 6.10m. Irene Rono placed third in the women’s 5k finishing behind a girl who broke the WAC record, but still qualified for day two. Annina Brandenburg finished second in women’s shot put.
Men’s long jump, Will Harris placed third, Jamal January placed sixth and Ryan Bornemeier placed tenth, respectfully, and all got a PR.
“A lot of exciting things day one.” head coach Jerrod Cook said, “Everyone fought really hard, but not everyone made finals. Every person was fighting hard to be at the highest spot they possibly could.”
On day two, Jonathan Ply qualified in the decathlon and took home the conference title, leaving him placed 13th in the nation.
Ella Anttila took the conference title in the triple jump and accomplished a personal best of 12.92m.
Taylor Tolen received her conference title for her performance in the 60m dash.
Jamal January took on day two after qualifying and was named a conference champion in his performance in the 60m hurdles.
“I was literally holding back tears when I crossed that finish line,” said January, a junior from Austin. “It was amazing, knowing that that hard work had paid off.”
Cook said each team left their mark on every event, “It’s a true testament for how hard we fought to show how much quality we do have on our track team.”
The women’s rank was riding on the 4×4 team and left them in third to finish out the season.
Although the teams did not place where they had hoped, Cook said their outdoor season is just around the corner and will give this team a second chance.
“There’s a lot of us on the team that consider us to perform better in outdoor season, so we are all super super excited,” January said.
Track and field’s outdoor season begins with their first home meet of the season, the Wes Kittley Invitational and Multi, on Thursday, March 17, and runs through Saturday, March 19.
