{"id":96865,"date":"2026-04-23T09:58:45","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T14:58:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=96865"},"modified":"2026-04-23T09:58:46","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T14:58:46","slug":"tiger-track-hosts-home-meet-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=96865","title":{"rendered":"Tiger track hosts home meet today"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>By MAYAN PAZ<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tiger Media Network<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\u2019s no place like home. At least that\u2019s what the Fort Hayst State University track and field team is hoping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Tigers host the Alex Francis Classic \u2014 the only home meet of the season \u2014 today beginning at noon. Two weeks ago, the team competed at West Texas A&amp;M in the Jo Meaker Classic and the Grizzly Gold Invite in El Dorado. Last weekend, the Tigers sent athletes to three different meets at Azusa, California, Emporia and Kearney, Nebraska.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some of the highlights in the performances posted the weekend before were Emma Slade in the discus, throwing a school record 49.60 meters \u2014 which places her third in the MIAA and 10th in the nation. In the 400-meter hurdles, Reba Mader, clocked a time of 1:01.10 (converted from a faster time due to the high elevation of over 3,500 feet in Canyon, Texas), placing her first in the MIAA.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dean Clark jumped a school record of 7.60 meters in the long jump, placing him first in the MIAA and seventh in the nation, Drew Tolar posted a mark of 7,096 points in the decathlon for fifth-best in the nation, and Jayden Michaelis clocked a time of 52.42 (due to the conversion) in the 400-meter hurdles, placing him third in the conference. They are joining Avery Albright, who ran a school record of 46.80 seconds in the 400 meters and is ranked second in the MIAA as the team\u2019s best performances so far this season.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tolar said he was happy with his performance, though he believes he has plenty of room for improvement.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt was a strong performance with a very crucial first day that went better than we expected (three personal bests in individual events),\u201d he said. \u201cThat made us realize what could happen when we put that day down and then came back to finish on Day 2. We started Day 2 really well in our first two events and then hit a wall with still quality performances \u2014 but not quite what we had dreamt of. And so obviously, we finish out with a 500-point personal best, which you can never complain about.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A group of pole vaulters traveled to Emporia on Thursday and had impressive vaults from Hunter Angove in the men\u2019s competition and Annabeth Baalmann in the women\u2019s. Angove soared to a personal best of 5.27 meters for sixth place in the nation and second in the MIAA, and Baalmann jumped a season best 4.12 meters, which is currently fourth in the nation and second in the conference.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A small group of long-distance runners traveled to California to compete in the Bryan Clay Invite in Azusa. Emily McCollough competed in the 10,000-meter race with a time of 34:52.18 minutes to place 13th in the nation.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At ESU, the Tigers hit three provisional marks, while securing six provisional marks at the Loper Invitiatonal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe&#8217;re super fortunate that we have a good opportunity with good weather and a fast track,\u201d said FHSU assistant coach Kelly Meyer heading into the meet at Kearney. \u201cHopefully, we have some good competition. That&#8217;ll be kind of the last little confidence boost I feel. And just kind of a big day to prepare us for a big, big weekend at conference.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The MIAA Championships are scheduled for May 1-3 in Pittsburg.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Meyer said he expects the athletes to stay focused entering the conference meet.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cConsistent practices with these good races and performances we&#8217;ve been having, and coupling that with just coming into conference very confident but open-minded and just excited about what could happen is the key to our success,\u201d she said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By MAYAN PAZ Tiger Media Network There\u2019s no place like home. At least that\u2019s what the Fort Hayst State University track and field team is&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":94234,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7349,4542],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","category-track-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/pexels-track-and-field-1867053_1280.jpg?fit=1280%2C841&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=96865"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96866,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96865\/revisions\/96866"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/94234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=96865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=96865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=96865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}