Over the weekend, Indiana men’s track and field sent their high jump, long jump and triple jump teams to the Commodore Challenge at Vanderbilt University. The rest of the team competed in the Simmons-Harvey Invitational Saturday at Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Indiana placed third as a team at the invitational, finishing behind Michigan and Michigan State, which took first and second, respectively. The pole vault team, consisting of gold and silver medal winners junior Nathan Stone and freshman Ryan Lipe, found the most success over the weekend. Stone, a second-team All-American, set the all-time meet record with a height of 5.43 meters.
Absent from the 60-meter dash was reigning Big Ten Track Athlete of the Year senior Rikkoi Brathwaite. Coach Ron Helmer said he wanted to exercise extreme caution with Brathwaite.
“He’s just at a place where you’ve got the number one time in the country, and it’s not something you want to take chances [with],” Helmer said. “The training load right now is pretty heavy and they’re working hard, and with somebody like him we just have to be really careful.”
In Nashville, senior JaiQuan Earls and junior Kynton Grays placed second and third in the long jump with marks of 7.17 meters and 7.01 meters, respectively. Earls also placed third in the triple jump.
Indiana was consistent across the board, placing in the top-three across sprints, middle-distance and long-distance. Junior Antonio Laidler took the gold in the 60-meter dash and former National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics athlete Kenny Benton, an IU graduate student, blazed through the 400-meter race with a winning time of 47.96. Junior Shaton Vaughn followed shortly behind Benton in second.
Camden Marshall, a freshman from Corydon, Indiana, built on his strong showing in the Hoosier Open with a win in the 800-meter dash. The Hoosiers had a successful performance in the mile race with graduate student Ben Veatch and seniors Arjun Jha and Jake Gebhardt taking second, third and fourth, respectively.
The energy inside the U-M Indoor Track Building never ceased. The last event, the 4x400 meter relay, provided one of the most exhilarating moments of the meet.
Despite smooth baton handoffs from one Hoosier to the next, Wolverine anchor Dubem Amene gained significant ground on Benton at the last turn and emerged victorious in a picture-esque finish.
Nonetheless, Helmer said he and the team were pleased with the early season performance.
“I think we made good progress,” Helmer said. “We’re training hard and just getting things going. We felt like the way the majority of our kids competed and the resulting performances in an early-season meet probably sets us up to where we can feel pretty good about where we are and what we have to look forward to.”
Indiana returns home next weekend for the Gladstein Invitational, which will take place Jan. 21-22 at Harry Gladstein Fieldhouse.
