The WTAMU track team hit the road this weekend to compete in Albuquerque, N.M. at the New Mexico Invitational. The team had a successful meet with 15 top 10 performances.
The Lady Buffs started the show by earning WT eight of their top 10 placings at the two-day meet. Rachel King, Kirsten McCowan, and Bailee Skeen put WT on the leader board placing seventh, eighth, and 10th in the 60-meter hurdles. King and McCowan’s times of 8.80 seconds and 8.89 seconds hit the provisional mark for Nationals. McCowan would continue her good meet by throwing 12.71 meters in the shot put to place third.
Makenzie Crane continued WT’s top rankings with a sixth in Pole Vault with a height of 2.85 meters and Casey Nelson joined Kirsten McCowan on the shot put leader board with a fifth place, breaking her personal best record with a 12.48 meter throw. Back on the track, Amber Moore ran the lengthy 3000-meter race in a time of 11 minutes 7 seconds, good for ninth.The women’s 4 x 400 meter relay saw even more success on the track as Sarah Snider, Rhemecka Graham, Jessie Thomas, and Tara Tarrant ran the relay in 3 minutes 56 seconds to secure fourth place.
The Buffs wouldn’t let the women’s squad take all the glory however; they also landed on the leader board multiple times.
Tommy Curry would pull double duty on the track, running both the 60-meter and 200-meter races. Curry proved that he was the one of the best at 60 meters in New Mexico, winning the preliminary and taking second in the final with a 6.825 second time. The solid results put him at sixth place in the nation.
In the 200-meter, Curry ran 22.06 seconds in the final for a sixth place finish, four spots above teammate Xavier Bennett. Alexander Korn would put WT back on top in the 800-meter race with a time of 1 minute 55.49 seconds. Martin Puga would run the event in 1 minute 59.57 seconds to place seventh.
Dylan Doss went long on the track in the 3000-meter race, clocking in at 8 minutes 48.50 seconds for a sixth place finish, two seconds faster than the next contestant. Courtney Macon would round out the entries on the track by going over the hurdles as an unattached athlete in the 60-meter hurdles. Macon finished the event in 8.21 seconds for a fourth place finish.
On the field, two Buffs hit the top ten, with one grabbing a provisional spot to Nationals. Servell Dandridge was in the shot put pit, throwing 16.16 meters to grab second place and grab his provisional qualification. Dane Hamrick also visited the shot put pit to throw 15.54 for a fifth place finish.
“Overall, I felt pretty good about how our team is progressing. We had some individual performances that were outstanding and then some individual performances that weren’t quite where we needed them to be. The positive thing is that I feel that we are moving in the right direction as a team,” Head Coach Darren Flowers said.
