TU track and field houses nationally ranked runners, says sports writer Daryl Turner.
If you have not been keeping up to date with TU’s track and field indoor season, I’m sad to say you have been missing out on what might potentially be one of the best seasons TU track and field has ever produced. Firstly, one of the fastest freshmen in the NCAA ran in the 400 meter dash — Evan Sanni-Thomas. Sanni-Thomas — a promising freshman on TU’s sprint squad — already ran a brisk time of 47.79 seconds earlier this season. Sanni-Thomas is currently ranked number five in the conference. Sanni-Thomas placed fifth in the 400 meter dash with a personal record of 47.52 seconds.
On the men’s 400 meter sprinters squad, senior Henry Visser and junior Kyran Lacy were ready to make their impact at conference. Visser is one of the most prominent and successful leaders on the team. He also competed in the 4×400 meter relay and distance medley relay. Lacy also competes in the 400 meter dash and the 4×400 meter relay. Josh Sutton, Cameron Ayers and Zachary Adee also traveled to Birmingham, Alabama to compete in the 60 meter dash.
Sutton went into the conference meet with the sixth best time in the 60 meter dash with a time of 6.80 seconds and the 12th best time in the 200 meter dash with a time of 21.70. Sutton placed fourth in the 200, with a personal best of 6.78 seconds. Adee and Ayers both compare to Sutton in speed, with all three competing in the same categories.
Women’s freshmen Ana Mager and Jayda Gibson have jumped onto the scene and left a large imprint. Mager is one of the fastest girls on the team, running a time of 55.95 seconds in the 400 meters and going into Conference with the 12th best time. Gibson also runs with a time of 56.40 seconds. Elizabeth Roca runs the 400 meter dash as well, planning to put on a show and run her personal record (PR) to place and win her team some points. Cara Johnson runs the 60 meter dash. Johnson looked to improve her time of 7.66 seconds at her last conference meet. In addition, Rachel Hamel participates in the pentathlon — the 800 meter dash, 60 meter hurdles, high jump, long jump and shot put.
Pete Johnson and Jaidah Mcallon competed in the 800 meter. Pete Johnson went to conference with his best indoor time of the season a whopping time of 1:55.68 and obtained a personal record of 1:55.28. Mcallon ran a personal record at conference with the number four time of 2:09.70.
Isaac Akers went into Birmingham with a time of 3:59.39 in the mile. What’s even crazier than Isaac running a sub four minute mile, is that Tulsa has five runners in the mile that went into UAB with the top seven times in the conference — Akers, Michael Power (4:01.17), Scott Beatie (4:02.17), Shay McEvoy (4:02.79) and Christan Baker (4:06.43). Tulsa also has three mile runners within the top 20 times in the conference: Sean Korsmo, Pete Johnson and Max Nores.
For the women, Katharina Pesendorfer is one of Tulsa’s fastest mile runners on the women’s side with a PR of 4:46.27. Keely Jones ran a 4:47.16 mile, earning her third place. Chloe McEachern also ran the mile, earning eighth place with a time of 4:53.68.
Out of the top 20 finishers in the 3000 meter event, Tulsa’s men occupied eight of those times. The top six times in the 3000 meters are all from Tulsa men — Beattie (7:49.33), Power, Cormac Dalton, Isaac Akers, Peter Lynch and Shay McEvoy, respectively. The women’s team earned five of the top six spots in the 3000 meter run, with Katharina Pesendorfer coming in first at a time of 9:27.97.
For the women’s 5000 meter runners, they occupied the first, second and fifth places, with Chloe Hershenow (16:42.31), Caroline Miller and Alice Newcombe respectively. The men also sweeped their 5000 meter run, earning first (Beattie at 14:14.16), second (Cormac) and third (Lynch).
The final scores of the conference meet put Tulsa men at 4th place out of seven teams and Tulsa women at 3rd place out of 11 teams.
