Track and Field has successful showing at indoor conference championships

BY MADISON SHAPLAND

The Fort Hays State Track team competed over the course of three days at the MIAA Indoor Conference meet, where they broke two school records, earned four All-MIAA honors, hit 13 national qualifier marks, took two MIAA Championship titles, and finished in the top-five for both the men’s (fourth) and women’s (fifth) teams. 

To begin this successful weekend for the Tigers, Nolan Churchman earned the MIAA Championship title in the heptathlon with 5304 points, putting 10 points towards the team’s score. 

“You get out what you put in, and to get to the MIAA Conference meet, you have to work hard,” Churchman said. “The competition after day one was really pushing me to do my best in day two and helped me better myself.”

His teammates Jonah Remsberg and Luke Hampl finished fifth with 4791 points and eighth with 4574 points in the heptathlon, bringing in another five points for the Tiger men. Ethan Salmans took ninth in the event with 4459 points.

On the women’s side, Mattie Rossi finished third in the pentathlon with 3815 points, putting six points towards the team’s score. 

“I’ve never been top-three in the pentathlon indoors so this has been really exciting for me,” Rossi said. 

Both Taylor Savolt and Chloe Stanley placed in the top-eight to give the Tiger women another four points to their team score. Savolt took sixth with 3732 points and Stanley took eighth with 3544 points.

Regan Hodsden also reached the podium in the 5000m run with a time of 17:32.64 to place third, good for six points. 

“We went out super slow. No one wanted to take the lead and there was a lot of elbowing and stepping on each other. By lap eight, I was over it and took the lead,” Hodsden said. “It’s super exciting to see all the work I’ve put in pay off.” 

Behind Hodsden was Darian Hudgeons who finished eighth with a time of 17:53.92 for another point for the Tigers.

Fort Hays men and women added to their scores in the distance medley relay (DMR). The women’s team consisting of Emily Salmans, Kinley Brown, Hannah Wiebe, and Faith Little, finished with a time of 12:25.36 to place seventh and gain two points. 

Trever Medina, Nolan Churchman, Ethan Lang, and Grant Bradley made up the men’s squad for the relay and finished third with a time of 9:54.61 to give the Tiger men another six points. 

“We expected this finish for ourselves,” said the men’s DMR runners. “We didn’t run our best, three of our guys weren’t fresh so we came in tired and that hurt us a bit but for the circumstances we’re pretty happy. We placed third last year so it was exciting to hold that place this year. We’re just happy to get team points anywhere we can, especially in this distance event.”

Ethan Fisher finished ninth in the mile with a time of 4:14.30. Lyric Holman placed sixth in the 60m dash with a time of 7.53 for three points. In the 400m dash, Hayden Albright added two points by finishing seventh with a time of 48.18. The 600y run brought points for both the men and women with Kaden Wren placing seventh with a time of 1:12.57 and Rossi placing fourth with a time of 1:22.94 for two and five points respectivley. 

WIth a top three finish, Lang brought in eight points for the Tiger men. He ran a 1:51.22 in the 800m to give him second place honors. 

“It feels really good to finish with a second place in this conference,” Lang said. “It was nice to be running the 800m over the 600y and competing with high quality competition.”

Aaron Mangan trailed Lang in the 800m run to finish with a time of 1:51.46. This placed him fourth and gave the team another five points. Albright finished seventh in the 200m with a time of 21.72, adding two points to the men’s team score. 

Philip Landrum finished in the 200m dash with a time of 21.49. He landed six more points for the men with the third place finish. 

“Getting on the podium feels really good, especially after not having a good prelim,” Landrum said. “This wasn’t the finish I wanted but I’m going to take what I got. Finishing third in this conference is real tough, so I’m going to count my blessings and keep moving up.”

Hodsden returned for another appearance on the MIAA Conference podium in the 3000m run. With a time of 10:03.46 she finished third, contributing another six points. Hudgeons ran a time of 10:07.95 for four points and a fifth place finish in the 3000m run. Grant Bradley also finished in the top-five in the 3000m run. His time of 8:24.80 put him in fourth and gave the Tiger men another five points. 

In the field events, Xavier Robinson triple jumped a length of 14.30m (46′ 11″) to finish in eighth and add another point to the men’s team standings. Savolt also saw success in this event with a jump of 11.69m (38′ 4.25″) To land her a sixth place finish good for three points. 

Pole vaulters Jacob Clark and Ryan Stanley finished second and third with jumps of 5.17m (16′ 11.5″) and 5.07m (16′ 7.5″) for a total of 14 points towards the men’s score. 

“Second place honestly feels amazing,” Clark said. “I’ve had a tough season with an achilles injury and bad timing with poles, but today everything came together. It felt really good to make that last bar.”

“It is really exciting to be on the podium,” added Stanley. “I didn’t reach my goals and wanted to do better, but this is tough competition and it’s really cool to finish in the top-three.”

In the final event of the night, the women’s 4×400 relay team consisting of Holman, Reba Mader, Savolt, and Rossi ran a time of 3:46.88 to place fourth, bringing another five points to the women’s score. The women’s team finished in a tie with Lincoln for fifth place with a total of 45 points.

The Tiger men ended the night with a victory, winning the men’s MIAA 4x400m relay championship title. WIth a make up of Hayden Albright, Philip Landrum, Ethan Lang, Nolan Churchman, the relay finished with a time of 3:11.32 contributing 10 points to the Tiger men’s total team score. 

“My legs were sore but I was able to follow the Pitt runner for the first 200 and kick it at the end to take the lead,” Albright said. 

“The lead from Hayden was nice. I went out a little fast, though, I don’t like following other people. But I got what I needed to get done by handing the baton off to Ethan without getting caught,” Landrum said. 

“I had 3 800m’s under my legs so I was feeling tired,” Lang added. “We’re real happy with our finish. 

“After 3-4 years, we finally stuck all the pieces together and took down the previous school record by five whole seconds. We’re able to take .2 seconds off our time when we’re tired. Who knows what we’ll be bale to do at nationals,” said the 4×400 squad. 

With this addition of points, the Tiger men finished in fourth with a total of 76 points.  

Pittsburg State ran away with the team titles with 208.50 points for the men and 183 for the women. The Gorilla men were followed by Missouri Southern with 100.50 points and Nebraska Kearney with 79 points. The Gorilla women were followed by Northwest Missouri with 130 points, Missouri Southern with 87.66 points, and Central Missouri with 80 points. 

“For the most part, it was a great weekend,” Head Coach Jason McCullough said. “In track and field you always have some good performances along with some things that don’t go your way, but it’s always good to finish off with a victory. We had some really good performances coming down this stretch with the 3000m run, the 200m dash, and the 4x400m relay. We competed extremely well against the best competition in the country and we’re really excited about that 4×400 to win that event and close out the meet.”

The 2023 NCAA DII indoor track and field championship selections will be announced Tuesday via press release on NCAA.com. The championships will occur on Friday, March 10 and Saturday, March 11 at the Virginia Beach Sports Center in Virginia Beach, Virginia.