Bill Lawson Video Blog: NCAA Regional Preview, May 26, 2015

The Golden Flashes head coach takes time out to discuss what is ahead for Kent State's 20 men's and women's NCAA Regional qualifiers before leaving for Jacksonville, Fla and the East Regional.

Video Blog: Bill Lawson previews the MAC Championships

Kent State Director of Track & Field Bill Lawson talks about what lies ahead this weekend for the men's and women's teams as they head to Muncie, Ind. for the Mid-American Conference Championships.




The action at Ball State takes place from Thursday through Saturday. For more information, click this link for KentState.com's MAC Championship Preview.

Video Blog: Bill Lawson previews the Campbell-Wright Open in Akron, and more...

The Golden Flashes head coach looks back at a successful weekend at the Jesse Owens Classic, including a record-setting performance for a third consecutive week. Lawson also previews this week's trip to Akron for the Campbell-Wright Open.

Video Blog: Bill Lawson on the season's impressive start and a preview of Jesse Owens Classic

The Golden Flashes head coach looks back at a great start to the season, including some record-breaking performances. He also previews this weekend's trip to Columbus for the Jesse Owens Classic.

The next few weeks offer a great opportunity for fans, family and alumni to get a look at this year's Flashes as they chase a MAC Championship. Next week, KSU visits Akron for the Campbell-Wright Open.

 The Mid-American Conference Championships follow May 14-16 in Muncie, where the men's team should be in the thick of the race for a title while the women's team chases a sixth consecutive championship.

A springboard from a great week in Tennessee

By Bill Lawson

Head Coach

We had an amazing weekend at the Tennessee Relays.

As I wrote last week, we were hoping for good weather and we got it. It was 75 degrees on Friday and 80 on Saturday, which was a day of ideal track conditions. 

We got a lot of things done with some fantastic performances. Some kids who hadn’t been running well ran well. We had two championship relays in the men’s 4x800 with some good legs from guys who needed to run well, and then in the 4x100 ran well.

We had multiple individual championships. Danniel Thomas won the shot put and the discus with Joh’Vonnie Mosley just a centimeter or two behind. Dior Delophont won the high jump. Ann Marie Duffus winning the hurdles. Roseanne Erickson was second in the 100 meters. Roseanne Erickson breaking the school record in the long jump and finishing second overall. It was a fantastic weekend.

Jailyn Twitty getting over 15-meters for first time in career. I was really pleased with men’s 4x400 getting 3rd overall and breaking the school record with good efforts across the board. Some of our middle-level kids had good performances that might not have been winning mark, but good performances. Mike King had two lifetime PR’s in both shot and discus.

I think we probably moved ahead as a program at least two weekends just from getting good weather.  Now we are going to get lucky again because we are supposed to get temperatures in the low-to-mid 60’s and mostly sunny at the Jesse Owens, and that meet is usually 40 and cold.

After that we go off to the prestigious 150th running of the Drake Relays while coach Mark Croghan takes a good group of his middle distance and distance runners to Hillsdale. We’ll split up that weekend.

The great weekend at the Tennessee Relays will give us the ability to have some options and choices with what we want to do with kids the next two weekends instead of having to run in key areas to move forward to get on the conference list and be in position to do well at the MAC Championships.

We feel more in control of our destiny than we did at this time in our indoor season.

Our men’s team looks really good, and our women’s team doesn’t look bad by any means. I don’t think we have used all of our power yet in the women’s team, and we have a little bit left on the men’s side, too.

Tennessee allowed us to see our team in full and that gives us a better barometer of what we need to do this next month to be prepared for the MAC championships at Ohio University.

We look really good right now on the regional and even the national level on both sides. I think we could take our largest number of kids to the national championships probably in the history of Kent State and certainly since I have been here.

We could take as many as 14 and I think for sure we can take eight. Since I’ve been here, the most we have taken is seven. That’s pretty exciting. 

I like where we are right now in just week four of the outdoor season, and we’ve had only had one weekend of good weather in which to compete. I think it gave us hope, confirmation and realization. Hope for some people, confirmation for others, and the realization that it is going to happen. 

This week at Jesse Owens, we want to avoid going backwards. Weather permitting we will make some tiny movements forward in middle distance and distance. I want to get those relay sticks around without incident. We don’t want to be foolish and try to do too much coming off of the huge week in Tennessee because we have a quick turnaround. I leave on Tuesday with the decathletes. They compete Wednesday and Thursday at the Drake Relays. The rest of the team flies in Thursday and competes Friday and Saturday before coming home Sunday.

Looking forward to nice weather and maybe a few more school records at Tennessee Relays

By Bill Lawson

Head Coach

We had some pretty unbelievable performances last week at the Northeast Ohio Quad in Akron despite some difficulties with the weather.

The ones that stick out on Friday night, in the last event of the day Matthias Tayala had the No. 4 throw in the nation. Even more impressive was his series. He had one foul and the rest were all 67-meters or better. And in pretty horrible conditions. Those conditions may not impact they way they would to a sprinter, but the wind was howling, the hands and muscles were cold. It doesn’t necessarily have an impact on the ball distance, but it does the body turning in the ring. It was very impressive.

A second huge record was Danniel Thomas in worse conditions on Saturday. She threw a school record 186’6” in the discus, going past a 19-year-old record. According to her throw coach, coach Fanger, she didn’t look that good technically. And yet she still had two great throws over 180. That’s impressive and it puts her top three or four in this region. 

The next standouts were the guys in the 100 meters. All of them had some very impressive performances. Wayne Gordon is now No. 3 all-time on our 100-meter list. It was a little windy, but the bad conditions make up for the extra wind they had. It’s exciting what those guys are doing. 

Roseanne Erickson in the long jump with a 6’0” is another very impressive performance. She probably punched her ticket for the regional meet. It puts her tops on the MAC list. At no time did she ever get on the board. Her furthest jump was behind the board. 

Jesse Oxley had another great performance. Because of the weather conditions, we had to move the pole vault inside and he punched his ticket to the first round down in North Florida. He won the meet and beat the national champion, Shawn Barber from Akron, who had a little bit of an off day. But still, if you compete against the best guy in the country, that’s a good performance. I still think Jesse has even better numbers ahead of him. The 17’.075” by Jesse was a personal record and the third best mark on the All-Time Top Performers List at Kent State.

Mike King had a good day. It was cold on Saturday. You couldn’t even feel your fingers. But he still threw 60’10”. That’s a good throw at this early stage and that is his first opening mark of the year.

There is an adjustment from indoor season to outdoor season, and especially with the weather we’ve been having. For the long jumpers, the high jumpers and pole vaulters, you have to adjust to swirling winds that are behind you and then in front of you or to the side of you. Miles Dunlap won the 400 hurdles this weekend when it was raining so hard that from the other side of the track you couldn’t see him. He ran 52.9, which isn’t his best time, but comparatively it is unbelievable in the elements.

In general, it is good to get outside. When we were in Louisville it was cold, raining and miserable. At least in Akron it was cold but the rain was on and off. 

If you are running in an event like the 800 or 1,500, and the wind is in your face, the wind is at your back, the wind is at your side, the rain coming down, it is good to adjust to the elements. So now we’ve had two really bad weather weekends with the hopes of having an unbelievably great weekend if the weather holds according to the forecast in Tennessee. They are talking about 70s on Friday and 75 on Saturday for the Tennessee Relays. It could really be exciting getting some SEC competition. 

It will be different competition, too, and not just the same competition we are used to seeing.

We are taking a big group. We are taking 60-plus athletes. The travel party is 72 with coaches and trainers. We are looking forward to a big weekend. 

We’ve had a pretty good start to the season even with the bad conditions. And we still have some our big guns who haven’t even opened up.

I think the Tennessee Relays will be a very good meet for the entire program. With the weather, it is going to feel like we are on spring break being down there. Every coach is taking their better kids, and every one of us are hopeful to move forward on the conference list, on the regional list, and who knows, maybe some more school records this weekend.

Seven Flashes heading to New Mexico for NCAA Championships

By Bill Lawson

Head Coach

We are very excited.

One of the goals I had when I first took this position in 2005 was that I wanted to make Kent State a nationally recognized program.

We’ve had a lot of calls from all over the country from people saying what a great weekend you guys had at the Mid-American Conference Indoor Track & Field Championships. It’s not confirmed, but it looks like we will take seven athletes to NCAA Championships in Albuquerque March 14-15. We should be taking three men and and four women.

On the men’s side we had an unbelievable performance by Wayne Gordon winning the 200 meters in 20.74 and now ranked ninth in the nation.

Of course, Matthias Tayala punched his ticket earlier in the year with his 72-foot weight throw that broke a school record. He has been great throughout year, rehabbing an injury to come back and doing a very good job this past weekend.

Will Barnes has been getting better all through this sophomore season. He keeps dropping times and dropping times, and then to run 7.75 was a phenomenal time in the 60-meter hurdles.

Those are the trio of men who should be going to the national championships.

On the ladies side we have continued to show dominance in throws. Jackie Leppelmeier punched her ticket earlier this year, like Matthias. She is sitting top-10 in the nation in the weight throw. She’ll be going to the national championships again. This will be her first time in the indoor, but she is no stranger to the NCAA Championships.

We had another fantastic group effort in the shot put this past weekend. What people don’t know is the week before, when Joh’Vonnie Mosley had a big throw, she suffered an injury and we didn’t know if she could throw. But she did. 

We got another big performance form Danniel Thomas winning the shotput in a fantastic effort. She has a top-ten mark in the nation.

And then of course one of our best athletes overall, Dior Delophont, has had some injuries lately that are atypical for her. We’ve tried to limit her lately to allow her to get healthy, and she came back this past weekend and did a terrific job. She was top-three in the long jump, top-two in the triple jump, and in her best event, the high jump, she is now sitting top-five in the nation. She’ll go in and try to defend the fifth-place finish she had in the nation last year.

If the women show up and hit some of those performances, we will do well and hopefully have a pretty good place finish as a team. But it is tough. The air is thin at the national championships, meaning that with the best athletes in the nation you are in some rare air. There is great talent at the national championships.

Last year we finished top-25 in the nation as a team with the women, and we would like to improve on that finish. We’d also like to get the men on the board. Wayne Gordon has a fantastic opportunity and if Matthias Tayala can find his groove coming back from injury, that could happen. And the hurdles are a quirky event. Will Barnes could go in there with the 15th-best time, but when we are taking about a 15th-best time we are talking the difference of hundredths of seconds. You could go out and have a great day when somebody else doesn’t, and then end up finishing seventh. A lot of the top-end kids don’t run well at the national championships.

I like our chances with the hopes of taking home some All-American hardware.