Jordan Dunn wants to help set tone for women at Mid-Major Challenge in California
The tone for the rest of the Central Michigan women's track and field season could be set this weekend when CMU sends a few athletes to the Mid-Major Challenge in California.
Also attending the meet in Sacramento, home of Sacramento State University, will be Wichita State, Utah State, Fresno State, Portland State, UC-Davis and the University of Nevada, making the Chippewas the only team in the meet to come from the Midwest.
“This week’s meet will set the tone right now for how we’ll be throughout the season,” said senior sprinter Jordan Dunn. “I’m pretty excited for the competition."
A select few distance runners will be head down the road to Big Rapids to compete at Ferris State in Big Rapids, while the rest of the team is off this week.
“The choice in picking is based on how they are going to affect the team as far as conference championships and how they are doing right now,” said Willie Randolph, director of CMU track and field.
The meet this week will be a big one for the teams as they will find themselves going against tough competition and will have to travel a long way to get there.
“It’s very big because everything right now is getting to that extremely important time to have faster marks and getting ready for the latter part of the season,” Randolph said. “If we don’t get things done now it’s going to be very difficult to catch up with teams down south that are going on their fourth meet.”
One reason for the Chippewas heading west is the hope that for the first time this season they can get lucky and get the chance to compete in the sun instead of the inclement weather conditions. Having posted good numbers in bad weather, CMU considers itself holding an advantage on the competition.
“That is the theory — you get warm weather, you get better results, and seeing that we’ve been receiving good results in the bad weather ...” Randolph said. “It’s about being ready mentally and physically. Right now I think we’re in a really good place.”
One of the athletes making the trip to California is Dunn, who is looking forward to the get away from the early spring Midwest weather.
“It does make you tired, but it’s more exciting because we’re going somewhere besides Michigan and it is good to see other competition we don’t see a lot,” Dunn said. “We’re used to running in the cold and rain and it’s kind of an advantage for us (getting) out of the cold.”
Men
On the men’s side, the group of athletes selected by the coaching staff are led by sophomore thrower Alex Rose, who was named Mid-American Conference field athlete of the week.
Joining Rose in Sacramento will be a host of Chippewa sprinters, including Dave Ashcraft, Charles Stinson, Renaldo Powell, Chris Thomas, Parker Scott and Ross Parsons.
Rose and Parsons are coming off of wins last weekend in Toledo and the rest of the athletes all had top five finishes last week. They will look to use that momentum to put up some solid marks this weekend.
“We're looking for some good competition," Randolph said. "Mentally I think were in a good position to compete anywhere right now. We just need to get into those tough environments — I’m looking forward to it.”
The three day meet began yesterday and will continue through Saturday.
