Senior Amanda Putt contined her school record breaking streak, now at five records in five weeks, at Grand Valley State University’s Big Meet on Feb. 11.
Putt automatically qualified for the national meet in the 5,000-meter run, after taking second at GVSU in a time of 16:29.95. She is the only person in the country to automatically qualify in the 800-meter, mile, and 5,000-meter run, women’s head coach Andrew Towne said.
“With the Big Meet, I believe people come to this meet looking to run their best,” Putt said.
Putt was also named GLIAC female track athlete of the week. This is the fourth week in a row that a member of the Hillsdale women’s track team was named athlete of the week.
However, Putt was not the only one breaking school records this past weekend at Grand Valley.
Both the men’s and women’s Distance Medley Relay teams provisionally qualified for nationals and broke their respective school records.
The women’s DMR team, which is made up of freshman Amy Kerst and seniors Chelsea Wackernagel, Jennifer Shaffer, and Putt, ran 11:42.57 and are currently ranked second in the country.
“They ran a provisionally qualifying time, so they are not guaranteed a spot at nationals, but with their current ranking, I can’t see how they wouldn’t go,” assistant coach Amanda Mirochna said.
The men’s DMR team was senior Jeff Wysong, sophomore Jarod VanDyke, senior Jerry Perkins, and freshman Matthew Perkins. Together the team beat the school record and joined the women as provisionally qualifiers.
“For the most part, we felt like we left part of it on the track, but we were hoping to have a better qualifying time for nationals,” Jerry Perkins said “Breaking the school record was a great boost to go out and get it.”
Matthew Perkins finished 17th in the mile at 4:13.46. He was followed closely by Wysong’s 18th place finish in 4:13.64. But while Matthew Perkins earned the provisional cut, Wysong fell short by a tenth of a second.
Senior Skylar Dooley took first place in the men’s 200-meter dash at 22.10 seconds and sophomore Maurice Jones followed in second place by only .12.
Jones also provisionally qualified in the men’s 400-meter dash at 48.38 seconds.
“This was our best weekend yet, posting many [personal records], a couple of provisional marks, and a school record,” men’s head track coach Jeff Forino said.
Shaffer provisionally qualified in the women’s 800-meter run at 2:12.95. She was also in the women’s 4×400-meter relay with juniors Kayla Caldwell and Erin Benjamin, as well as Wackernagel, that took second place at 3:55.04.
Junior Kathy Dirksen threw 18.01 meters to come in fourth in the women’s weight throw, and senior Cat Nass finished eighth by throwing 17.11 meters.
“Kathy and Cat, I think, are expecting to throw about five feet farther, and I expect it to happen,” Forino said.
Both Dirksen and Nass provisionally qualified for the national meet, but will most likely need to automatically qualify in order to go to nationals with the tough competition this year.
“The reason why the auto mark is necessary this year is because the weight throw for the women is really strong,” said Towne, who noted that many women throwers have already qualified for nationals.
This coming weekend the team will be headed back to Grand Valley for the GVSU tune-up meet. However, in preparation for GLIACs in two weeks, both Towne and Mirochna said that some of the distance runners will have this week off.
