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.