Men’s track captain Ty Etchemendy took another step toward his goal of qualifying for the outdoor national meet in all three of his events this past weekend with solid performances in the triple jump, 400-meter hurdles, and the 4×400-meter relay.
The senior jumped 14.68 meters in the triple jump and ran a provisional-qualifying time of 53.45 seconds in the 400-meter hurdles. He didn’t run the 4×400 relay at the Hilltopper Relays in Bowling Green, Kentucky, but ran part of last week’s 4×400 relay at the Texas Relays in Austin.
“I wasn’t super happy with how everything went, but I made good strides towards what I’m trying to do,” he said. “This weekend was actually kind of difficult because they weren’t running triple jump very efficiently and I ended up only having five minutes after triple jump to run the 400 hurdles.”
Etchemendy believes surpassing the school record of 15.04 meters in the triple jump and running a sub-52 second time in the 400-meter hurdles are both attainable by the end of the season.
In addition to praising Etchemendy’s performance from the past weekend, head coach Andrew Towne highlighted sophomore Nate Eldridge’s 48.9 second time in the 400-meter dash.
“[This past weekend] was another opportunity to improve,” Towne said. “We have a home meet this weekend, so we have another shot at it.”
Other notable performances at the Hilltopper Relays were sophomore Nathan Pando’s 22.63 second time in the 200-meter dash, the 4×100 relay team’s 41.85 second performance, and Junior Daniel Čapek’s 41.42 meter throw in discus.
Athletes who didn’t travel to the Hilltopper Relays this past weekend traveled to the Marv Frye Invitational in Delaware, Ohio. Junior Luke Miller’s second-place finish in the pole vault was the highlight of the men’s performances at the meet. Miller’s vault of 4.13 meters was about a quarter-meter off of his personal best, but he was still pleased with his effort.
“It’s a little disappointing, because it’s not as high as I feel I should be able to go, but it was nice to get something started for outdoor,” Miller said. “Pole vaulting is such a finicky event — it’s easy for one little thing to be off that affects your entire performance. Especially with the mental aspect of it.”
This Friday and Saturday the track team will host the Border Battle, its first outdoor home track meet of the season, at the Ken Herrick Track in Muddy Water’s Stadium.