Indiana men’s track and field competed in three separate meets over the weekend and managed to battle through the tough schedule with top-three placements throughout.
On Friday, a majority of the team stayed home to compete in the annual Hoosier Hills meet at Harry Gladstein Fieldhouse. Senior JaiQuan Earls kicked things off with a first-place finish in the long jump with a mark of 7.14 meters. Success in the field continued through sophomore Adam Strouf’s winning mark of 18.10 meters in the shot put.
Freshman Sean Mockler and graduate student Jyles Ettiene also achieved gold medals in the weight throw and high jump, respectively.
In the absence of their top sprinters, who competed in Vanderbilt’s Music City Challenge, the Hoosiers’ middle and long distance runners shined. Redshirt sophomore Parker Raymond picked up a win in the 600-meter race with a time of 1:19.19, while fellow redshirt sophomore Austin Haskett won his first race of the season with a 4:09.56 finish in the mile run. Additionally, seniors Ben Miller and Skylar Stidam set personal bests in the 3000-meter event with second and third place finishes, respectively.
Looking ahead to the Big Ten and NCAA Indoor Championships, head coach Ron Helmer emphasized the need for Indiana’s younger and more inexperienced runners to maintain focus.
“We don’t all get to be good when we’re 18 or 19 years old, but we have to engage in the process,” Helmer said. “The Big Ten is crazy good, and I don’t think anyone signed up for easy.”
Senior Reece Proctor, who transferred from a community college following his freshman year, knows plenty about this process. On Friday, Proctor picked up a win in the 800-meter race with a personal best time of 1:51.79 and ran the meet-winning leg of the 800-meter distance medley relay.
“I’ve been injured for the better part of my entire time here and now I’m a senior and it’s kind of crunch time,” Proctor said. “At this point I kind of need to perform, so I definitely have something to prove every time I step on the track.”
The sprinting trio of graduate student Kenny Benton, redshirt senior Rikkoi Brathwaite and junior Antonio Laidler had their first action on Friday in Nashville. Laidler and Benton finished second and third, respectively, in the 200-meter race.
On Saturday, Benton secured a first-place finish in the 400-meter race with a season-best time of 47.04 seconds. In the 60-meter dash, Brathwaite took home the gold with a time of 6.62 seconds. Laidler finished third in the 60-meter dash with a time of 6.80 seconds.
At the Gladstein Invitational on Jan. 21 and 22, Brathwaite expressed disappointment in his 60-meter performance despite a win. After the Music City Challenge, however, he was more satisfied.
“I’m content with the time,” Brathwaite said. “I know there’s a lot more work to do in these next two weeks in terms of technique and focusing on what I need to do execution wise.”
To conclude the weekend, three Indiana distance runners traveled to Chicago for the Windy City Invitational on Saturday. Graduate student Ben Veatch and seniors Jake Gebhardt and Arjun Jha competed in the 3000-meter event.
Gebhardt placed sixth in his section with a time of 8:01.62 and Jha took eighth in his section with a time of 7:59.06. Veatch, who is in the midst of a very successful campaign, picked up a silver medal in the race with a time of 7:45.36, good for a personal best and program record. His time currently sits at second in the Big Ten and sixth in the NCAA this season.
The Hoosiers will travel again Saturday to South Bend, Indiana, for the University of Notre Dame’s Alex Wilson Invitational, the final indoor meet of the season before the Big Ten Championships.
