The Charger men delivered solid performances at the Wide Track Classic this past weekend. 800 athletes from the United States and Canada competed over two days. Head coach Andrew Towne said that the team’s performance on Saturday indicates that they are on track for the G-MAC Championships.
“I think we’re a little banged up in a couple of spots,” Towne said. “But hopefully the guys are starting to sort out that we have a chance to win the G-MAC title. Being at home won’t hurt that.”
The distance team chalked up one solid performance after another. Sophomore Alex Oquist placed first in the mile with his time of 4:28.8.
“I PR’d in the mile by about 13 seconds, which is pretty awesome,” Oquist said. “It was only my second time running it, so I was really excited to have another shot at the distance. I was just really happy because it was the culmination of my training kind of paying off. The whole weekend was great.”
Junior Eli Poth won the 5000-meter race with a time of 15:41.98 while leading the pack the entire time.
“It was a good step in the right direction,” Poth said. “I had to run the race mostly by myself, so I’m excited to get into a more competitive race.”
The distance medley relay team made up of senior Nathan Jones, freshman Konnor Maloney, freshman Adam Wade, and sophomore Joey Humes took second place on Friday night.
“The men’s DMR went really well,” Towne said. “They just missed the school record, but it’s a good time for this point in the year.”
Oquist said watching his teammates perform as well as they did in the DMR was a motivator for Saturday’s events.
“It was pretty special to see that because all of them ran pretty great races,” Oquist said. “That was Friday night and it kind of gave us a lot of momentum going into Saturday. I was really excited for them so it gave me a little bit of motivation.“
The team will compete twice more before G-MAC Championships on the 23rd and 24th of February. They travel to Grand Valley State this coming Friday and Saturday for the GVSU Big Meet.
“I’m excited to see where we’re at this week,” Towne said. “This will be our last meet where everybody is going at it. Next week will just be a tune-up. Some kids will wrap up their season next week and some kids will just be trying to do one little thing to get ready for G-MACs.”
