It
was a busy weekend of track and field for the Shocks …
The WSU-KU-KSU
Triangular
The
second annual triangular between the three D1 schools in Kansas was a heckuva
meet. Here were the team scores:
Men: Kansas 126, Wichita St 110, Kansas St 109
Women:
Kansas 128, Kansas St 125, Wichita St 95
Looking
at the team scores you might think that we struggled but, overall, I think we
did pretty well. On the men’s side we
were without four athletes that could’ve made a difference in point scoring
(Shazz-Michael Lindo, Tate Annis, Jake James, Kaden Griffin). With those kids I think we would’ve been very
close to winning the meet. On top of
that KU and KSU have really good teams this year. I think KU has their most well rounded team
since I’ve been at WSU (10 years). I
expect both teams to battle Texas for the Big 12 titles this year.
I
mentioned last week that Nikki Larch-Miller wouldn’t be competing for the
women. With her it would’ve made it much
closer as well. Did you see our men’s
basketball team play without Fred VanVleet earlier this year? Well our women have a similar type need for
Nikki. Hopefully she’ll be ready to
compete again soon.
In
the two years of the meet we have found that the host seems to get a big bump
in scoring – which makes sense. Next
year we host this meet and we expect to see the same kind of bump for WSU.
Our
kids competed hard and had a lot of good early season performances. The coaches have talked about how having this
meet later in the indoor season might yield even better marks but it appears
that it will continue to be in the middle of January for the foreseeable
future.
It’s
a fun meet and a good way to get our season really rolling.
Shocker Prelude
After
competing in Lawrence Friday night, we got home to Wichita around midnight and
then was back up and at it Saturday morning hosting the Shocker Prelude. The coaching staff was a little bleary eyed
at 8am as we were setting up the facility but fortunately the kids on the team
came rested and ready to go.
We
had several athletes double back from Friday to compete in one event, but
mostly it was athletes who didn’t compete the day before. It was a great chance for some of our
developing athletes to place high and be relied on for scoring. We had a strong field on non-D1 teams and
this is how the scoring came out:
Women: Wichita St 216, Emporia St 171, Oklahoma
Baptist 166, Angelo St 122, Friends 121
Men: Friends 147, Wichita St 132, Oklahoma Baptist
122, Emporia St 111
Even
though many of our top athletes weren’t competing we were still trying to win
the meet. Most D1 schools in this kind
of a meet wouldn’t have scored it because there’s a possibility they would lose
but that’s not how we like to do things.
We think all meets should be scored and an effort to cover the events
should be required by all teams. It
makes it more fun for all involved.
Take
this meet for example. Friends
University has done a great job building a terrific NAIA team and winning this
meet has got to put a pep in the step of everyone associated with their men’s
team. If it was a non-scored meet then
we would’ve just been standing there watching some events and hoping for some
fast times. Coach Rainbolt noticed we
were losing the men’s meet late in the day and tried to get me to consider not
scoring the 4x800m relay (we didn’t have a team). He was joking but even in a situation like
this he’s a competitor and doesn’t want to lose.
Congrats
to Friends on a great meet and good luck in your upcoming KCAC and NAIA meets!
I
have a lot of other thoughts on how track and field should be run but that’s for
another time. J
Women’s winning
streak
We
started hosting track meets in the Heskett Center in 2009. Since then we’ve had 13 scored meets (usually
one in January and one in February). Our
women have won all 13 meets, defeating 54 opponents in the process. There have been some really good teams come
to the Heskett Center over the years and our ladies have defeated all of them,
as well as winning a couple of Shocker Prelude meets with our developing
athletes.
I
think that’s a tremendous accomplishment.
If we are able to defeat another group of good teams on February 13 in
the Herm Wilson Invitational (UT-Arlington, North Texas, Oral Roberts, UMKC),
we would head into next year’s Kansas Triangular with an interesting
motivational tool.
The
closest meet our women have had was winning by 18 points in last year’s Shocker
Prelude. Our men have won 9 of the 13 meets.
If
you were to make it a won/loss record total, our women would be 54-0 at the
Heskett Center and our men 44-4 (losses to Sam Houston St, UT-Arlington,
Emporia St and Friends).
Cool
stuff!
Next week
This
week we head to Lincoln, Nebraska for two meets. Friday we compete in the Nebraska Wesleyan
Invitational held on the campus of Nebraska which we’ll use to give some kids
the opportunity to compete on back to back days again.
But
Saturday will be the main focus in a scored quad meet with Nebraska, Colorado
St and MVC opponent Illinois St. Speaking
of streaks, I’ve never been part of a team that beat Nebraska in a scored meet
like this (and we compete against them every year). They have one of the most consistently well
rounded and deep teams in the nation every year and have just been too tough
for us. We had one meet around 2009 that
we got within 10 points but usually it has been a pretty humbling experience in
Lincoln.
Colorado
St and Illinois St both have really good teams as well so it should be a great
meet!
Movies!!!
It
was a very busy week so the only movie watching I was able to do was on my DVD
player – and usually while working! I
did happen to see an early Paul Walker movie called Joy Ride that probably paved his way to the more well-known Fast
and Furious franchise. It was a pretty
solid road movie about two brothers who get constantly stalked by a crazy guy
driving a semi. It reminded me of an old
movie directed by a young Steven Spielberg named Duel. That was a great and
simple movie that is available to watch for free on YouTube.
I
have not seen the new Star Wars movie and probably won’t. I’ve heard it’s good but has only made $1.5
billion so far. Slackers.
Next time
I’ll
probably do the usual and recap the week!
Until
then, thank you for reading and Go Shocks!
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