Team competes at invitational

Nate Moller senior sports Writer

The Irish track and field team had a very successful weekend at the m eyo Invitational by winning multiple events and recording some national qualifying marks and times.

h ead coach m att s parks was encouraged by the steps his team made this weekend.

“We’re kind of in that time of the year where we are setting up for conference and national seedings. We took some steps forward in those regards,” s parks said.

The Irish got off to a quick start in day one of the meet with sophomore Jadin o ’ b rien taking first place in the women’s pentathlon. o ’ b rien finished first in three of the five events, winning the 60m hurdles, long jump and 800m race.

With that performance, o ’ b rien is now ranked second in the country in the pentathlon.

“It was a nice win, but it also places her second in the country in that event right now,” s parks said. “It was very encouraging in that she had several events where she was not at her best, so there’s a lot of room for growth for her. s he still hit a mark that was number two in the country.”

Junior m ichael s hoaf continued his early season dominance as well by winning the shot put with a throw of 19.31m. s parks said he hopes that s hoaf can continue to improve and qualify for the national meet in coming weeks.

“ h e just keeps winning,” s parks said. “The next step for him is to get a mark that puts him in the national meet. h e just keeps climbing up the national list, but he is still just on the outside of the qualifier’s list. h e needs to find a little bit more to push himself into the national meet. h e’s got the top mark in the A cc , which is something else we are shooting for in an A cc c hampionship.” e lsewhere in the field, sophomore m adison s chmidt took first in the high jump with a mark of 1.80m.

“That mark puts her number one in the A cc ,” s parks said. “First thing we look at is what we can do nationally and secondly we look at how many points we can score at the national meet or maybe win a title.

We’ve got four or five athletes who are knocking on the door of an A cc championship when we go to Louisville in a couple of weeks, and she is definitely in the conversation for that right now.” s enior Katie Thronson and graduate student Anna s ophia Keller also competed, finishing with times of 4:37.34 and 4:40.94, respectively. s parks discussed the subfour effort from s olomon. s olomon’s and r enfree’s performances in the mile gives s parks confidence for the distance medley relay going forward as well.

In the invitational’s signature mile races, the Irish also had success. o n the women’s side, junior o livia m arkezich finished second with a time of 4:34.00.

In the men’s m eyo m ile, sophomore c arter s olomon placed third with a blazing fast time of 3:57.13, which was his first sub-four mile of his career. Junior Jake r enfree also finished the race in a time of 4:02.21.

“For him, it was a nice accomplishment to break four, but what it really does for him more than anything is it gives him a lot of confidence because he’s more of a longer distance runner. h e’s more of a 5K runner than a miler,” s parks said.

“It also gives us a lot of hope for the distance medley relay, which is another event we take a lot of pride in. With [ s olomon’s] mile time and Jake r enfree wasn’t too far behind him in that mile and our men’s sprinters stepped up, so we are feeling more confident about that event as we approach the postseason,” s parks said.

In the women’s 3000m race, sophomore s iona c hisholm finished first with a time of 9:04.48. s ophomores e rin s trzelecki and s ophie n ovak also finished the race in times of 9:22.96 and 9:24.63, respectively. In the r yan s hay 3000m run, freshman John s chuler took fifth with a time of 8:16.63. s ophomore r yan s chumacher also finished in a time of 8:22.22. s parks said he thought c hisholm raced a great race, considering she ran a large portion of the race by herself. see TrAcK PAGE 13