By MAYAN PAZ
Tiger Media Network
After a long indoor schedule that began in December, the first of two season highlights have arrived. The Tigers will travel to Pittsburg State University this weekend to compete in the MIAA Indoor Track and Field Championships. This meet is the peak of the season for most of the team’s athletes, as they try to earn MIAA honors. However, for a few, this is also the preparation phase for the national championships, which will take place in two weeks at Virginia Beach.
The MIAA competition will last three days, and already on day one, Tigers fans can watch one of the team’s national contenders try to challenge for the MIAA title in the Heptathlon. Drew Tolar is ranked No. 11 nationally, and 16 multi-athletes will receive an invitation to the national championship. Among the competitors in the MIAA championship, he is ranked No. 2 before the competition, just two points behind the MIAA leader.
While Tolar will compete for the first two days of the event, on the third day, the men’s side will see another national contender try to get a podium finish in the conference. With a fresh mark of 5.15 meters in the pole vault from last week, Josiah Ball is ranked No. 3 in the MIAA, aiming for more.
At the conference meet, any top-8 finish will award points toward the team competition, and as Tolar and Ball are the main contenders for a top-3 finish, other individual athletes and relay teams will aim to win points as well.
Sprints, hurdles, and multies coach Kelly Meyer said success in this meet will be measured by the number of athletes reaching the final in their events and scoring points individually.
“Getting athletes to the final is going to be my first mark of success,” she said. “I am more focused on that than where the team ranks overall at the end. If we do that and get people into the finals, I think it’ll (overall rankings) take care of itself.”
On the women’s side, pole vaulter Annabeth Baalmann and high jumper Katie Linenberger will likely be in the hunt for a top finish. Baalmann leads the conference and is No. 2 nationally with a seasonal-best and school-record vault of 4.30 meters. Linenberger is ranked No. 2 in the MIAA and No. 4 nationally with a mark of 1.78 meters. Another contender for a top finish will be Emily McCullough in both the 3,000 meters and the 5,000 meters, as she is ranked in the top 5 in both races in the conference.
For Baalmann, while this weekend is an opportunity to win a conference title, she is also focused on challenging for the national title in two weeks.
“Obviously, I would like to walk away with the win from conference, but I’m really just focusing on having the jumps that can prepare me for nationals,” she said. “So working on bigger poles and working on my technique, and just trying to get everything fine-tuned for nationals, is my goal.”
Baalmann spoke about her preparation for nationals and mentioned that some of the top competitors in the MIAA will be at the national meet as well, so this is a chance to prepare for what the national championships are going to look like.
“The top four of us in our conference are ranked pretty high nationally, so it’s going to be pretty much a pre-national meet,” she said. “So most of these girls I compete with all year long, and that’s the ones who I really do model with at nationals. So it’s just going to kind of give a preview of what national is going to look like.”
Events begin today at 2 p.m. and will continue through Sunday.