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DGS Bob Cahoon Invitational – April 21, 2011
We always look forward to this meet. We use it as one of our checkpoints to gauge where we are with our training. This year brought us some cold and wind unlike past years, but we were still able to pin down some solid performances. Results.
It has been a decade since we have had a guy win a weight event at an invitational, or place in the top five for that matter. Mark Gaido made history for us by winning the discus with a modest throw of 140’01″. The only other significant performance from the field came from sophomore Brad Mikulecky, who jumped 42’00″ in the triple jump, creeping him ever closer to establishing himself as the best f/s jumper in our program’s short existence.
We put an all-senior 4 x 800m relay together to see what personnel could possibly be used 4 weeks from now to try and qualify for the State meet. Some of our guys are still getting used to our recent inclusion of speed work, but overall we ran competitively and showed some promise to run well under 8:00.0 later on. Vincenzo Dal Pozzo led us off with a solid 1:57.4 leg and it was senior Joel Lynn’s job to keep us in the race. Joel did just that by running a hard first lap (57.7) and held on to run 2:02.7. Josh Antonson ran a more strategic race and handed off to Josh Ferguson who ran 2:01 to bring us home in 3rd in 8:05.4. We were excited to see Mark Derrick and Taylor Soltys race in a 3200m together for the first time this year. Taylor is making great progress after some significant time missed due to an achilles injury and finished 8th in 9:35. Mark continued his tradtion of running with one shoe and somehow mustered a 9:19 while running this way for 7 laps. He continues to get stronger and even though his first attempt at a 3200m/1600m double was not what he envisioned, he gained some valuable experience. Possibly the performance of the night on the track came from sophomore Alekh Meka in the open 800m (2:01.7). Alekh is known for his distance stamina but also showed he has some speed by running 62/59.7 splits to easily win the 2nd heat and finish 4th overall. He definitely showed he deserves consideration for our 4x800m relay and is now a candidate for a spot in the 1600m at Sectionals. Based on this performance, he has a good chance of being the fastest sophomore 1600m runner in our history. Jake Bender continued his consistent, high level performance in the 400m (49.5). I am looking forward to seeing him being challenged by someone down the stretch to see how fast he can really go. Our sprinters had a tough night due to being a little leg dead from working very hard this past week. However, our 4x400m relay continued to run well by winning in 3:24.3. Ryan Tomasi showed some promise by running a 50.9 lead off in less than ideal conditions.
We look forward to running some different events this Tuesday at dual meet with WV and getting some more guys a chance to prove themselves at the Red Ribbon Invitational next Saturday at WV. Onward!
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