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The Olivet Comet’s Track and Field team started off their spring season with a Triangular against the Adrian Bulldogs and Cleary Cougars. The Cutler Event Center field held various events for the athletes to take part in. The men’s track and field team put up 135 points to take first over the second-place Adrian team that was 13 points behind. The Women’s team also was able to snatch first with a 5-point lead over the second place Bulldogs. The men and women’s Cleary teams rounded out the rankings in third place.
Field Events:
The field events started at 11:00 a.m. The Men’s and Women’s teams both had a strong showing in this portion of the triangular, taking home multiple first place victories across different events. The most notable performance goes to the new men’s high jump school record holder Freshman DeVondre Chandler. Chandler took off for a 2.04m jump to take first place and help secure the Men’s overall victory. Chandler feels that starting off the seasons with such a strong jump really set the tone for his season and provided a lot of reassurance that despite being a young 18-year-old freshman, that he is right where he deserves to be competing with some of the upperclassmen. When asked about his training process DeVondre said, “I don’t get to see the runway much while practicing, which keeps me hungry for the big jumps at the meets. I like to go into training very energetically as if it were a meet, but also think of a time for critique and focus on the little details. That being said, I find it very important that I am open-minded to the coaches' ideas because they can see something in my approach that I don’t feel.” With so much accomplished at the start of his career, Chandler still has great expectations for himself. This outdoor season he’s striving to see himself finish with first or second in the nation for high jump, from there he’s only shooting higher and higher with eventual team USA aspirations.
Below is a list of all other athletes that finished first in their respective field events:
Women’s High Jump: senior Allyson Stevens 1.43m
Women’s Triple Jump: freshman Ellie Baynes 9.09m
Men’s Triple Jump: sophomore Charles Goldman 11.28m
Men’s Long Jump: senior Jordan Brown 6.82m
Men’s Hammer: freshman Owen Fremeau 45.07m
Women’s Javelin: freshman Alyson Senish 26.85m
Men’s Discus: freshman Owen Fremeau 40.75m
Women’s Shot Put: junior Berniah Alexander 10.63m
Men’s Shot Put: freshman Austin Cole 13.90m
Track Events:
The track events started at 1:30 p.m., and it started out with a bang. The 4x100m Women’s relay team consisting of junior London Eldridge, senior Alex DeVaul, freshman Morgan Jeffries, and senior Lily Connelly broke the school record with a time of 50.69 seconds. After the Triangular was over Lily then shared insight into the preparation for going into a relay like this. Heading into this race the girls were very confident, and they were certain that they were going to achieve a good time, and almost felt as if they needed to in order to put them in a great position for the remainder of the season. They knew what they had to do, the key for them was all in the communication and the handoffs. Being able to break the school record on this first outdoor meet only pushes them to work harder in trying to top that time. Lily shared, “The 4x100m team had a lot of goals in place, and breaking the school record was only near the top of that list.”
Below is a list of all other athletes that finished first place in track events:
Women’s 100m Hurdles: junior Emily Norkowski 15.84
Women’s 400m: senior Lily Connelly 1:01.50
Women’s 100m: junior Morgan Jeffries 13.24
Men’s 800m: senior Chris Davis 1:57.22
Women’s 200m: junior Morgan Jeffries 27.49
Men’s 200m: senior Jordan Brown 21.66
Women’s 4x400m Relay: freshman Aubrey Connelly, senior Lily Connelly, senior Tonya Tepin, senior Allyson Stevens 4:19.50
All times and statistics were provided by Sports Information Director Geoff Henson through the University of Olivet athletics website.