Michigan State University
Big Ten Championship (BTN)
MSU Track & Field Ends the Day with Podium Finishes
2/24/2017 12:00:00 AM | Track and Field
GENEVA, Ohio - The Michigan State track & field team highlighted the day with multiple personal and season-bests on the opening day of the Big Ten Indoor Track & Field Championships at the SPIRE Institute in Genava, Ohio on Feb. 24. Through the first day of events the Spartan women are in seventh with 20 points, while the men are in fifth with 16 points.
Day One Results
"I felt like we were in the fight the entire day," said Director of Cross Country and Track and Field Walt Drenth. "What we want to see is a scrap, sometimes all you can do is get here and be a better version than what you've been all year and I felt like we were that on a lot of occasions today. From my standpoint, I felt we made some progress even though we didn't score the points we wanted to. If we keep this mentality going forward it will help us get better and better down the road."
Michigan State's best finish came on the men's side in the pole vault as redshirt junior Tim Erhardt was the lone Spartan to claim a first-place finish and become a B1G Champion on the first day. Erhardt cleared 5.49-meters, a height that was a personal record, and he broke the SPIRE Institute meet record, which was previously set by him.
"It's rare in college meets to see people jump over 18 feet in the pole vault," said Drenth. "That's usually one of the first big milestones of someone who is going to be really good at something. 18 feet for Tim (Ehrhardt) is quite an accomplishment and hats off to him. He was an unbelievable competitor today. It was a great testament to his will, his competitiveness and his talent."
The distance medley relay also found themselves on the podium with a third-place finish and a time of 9:41.69. The team in running order consisted of senior Sherod Hardt, senior David Washington, sophomore Justine Kiprotich, and sophomore Daniel Sims.
"We had a couple highlights on the men's side. From the scoring standpoint the men's distance medley did a fantastic job," said Drenth. "Dan (Sims) did a fantastic job anchoring, Sherod (Hardt), David (Washington) and Justine (Kiprotich) made it possible for Dan and I thought they did a really nice job taking third."
Sophomore Will Agodu will look to stand on the podium as he advanced to the finals of the men's 60-meter hurdles. He finished ninth in the preliminaries with a time of 8.02, a hundredth of a second from a personal-best.
The men's heptathlon will resume competition tomorrow morning, but through four events freshman Nick Guerrant is in sixth, while junior Justin Pederson sits in 11th.
Junior Andrew Middleton was just short of the finals in the mile with an 11th-place finish but he recorded a personal-best time of 4:08.74. Despite not qualifying for the finals 11 men recorded personal-best times after the conclusion of day one.
"We had a lot of really good things happen today across the board, we had a lot of personal bests," said Drenth. "We still aren't scoring a ton, but we need those expectations that we will out of everyone. All of these personal records are a sign of progress. It's also a sign of fight. From my standpoint the fact that we come here knowing we might not win but we are willing to fight and that goes a long way in how we are going to continue to grow as a group."
On the women's side, redshirt senior Hannah Sailar battled through an injury and led the team with a third-place finish in the pole vault and season-best 4.15-meters.
"Hannah's third place in the pole vault was quite an effort," said Drenth. "Hannah was the core of who we are right now. She competed today with a stress fracture in her heel. She can't put her spikes on so she's running down the runway with an obvious disadvantage because she cannot be at full speed and she came in third. She exemplified toughness, she exemplified her will to win, she exemplified all the things that are necessary for us to be exceptional. She represented our team so well today, I am so proud of what she did today."
Sophomore Asya Reynolds took fifth in the pentathlon with a final score of 3734 to tally four points for the Spartans at the beginning of the day. Reynolds took fourth in the 60-meter hurdles, fifth in the high jump, sixth in the shot put, fifth in the long jump, and 12th in the 800-meter run.
"Asya Reynolds is close," said Drenth. "She took fifth place in the pentathlon, when you're in fifth place and you're close that's a good thing. One of the things I want everyone to do today is take a lesson out of everything and watching Asya manage herself at a pretty high level throughout the day was something we needed to see."
Senior Alexis Wiersma also garnered points for the Spartans with a fifth-place finish in the 3000 meter run on a time of 9:16.10.
"There was talk at the end of the meet of the women's 3000 being the fastest ever one through eight and Ali (Wiersma) was in the fight the entire time, and that was a nice job," said Drenth.
Junior Katelyn Daniels concluded the scoring for MSU with a fifth-place finish in the shot put. Daniels furthest throw was 15.65-meters, which marked a season best.
Day two of the Big Ten Indoor Championships take off at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 26, with the continuation of the men's heptathlon. The full slate of events concludes at approximately 4:35 p.m. with the women's 4x400-meter relay.
"We can genuinely see some growth with this group from the way we behaved today," said Drenth. "Tomorrow will be another day but I would expect that we will see some good performances from everyone that has another chance and I think they will do well."
Players Mentioned
