Three Chippewas win MAC track and field individual titles, teams fall short
Central Michigan director of track and field Willie Randolph would be the first to say his team did not run as well as it wanted.
The men’s team finished third out of five teams at the Mid-American Conference indoor championship in Akron, Ohio, while the women’s team finished 10th out of 12 teams. Randolph said with a shortened roster, there was a lot more adversity to battle.
Kent State won the women's championship with 108.5 points. Akron won the men's championship with 163 points.
“There was a lot of different things that kept us from winning,” Randolph said. “They competed very hard. I’m very proud of them.”
The Chippewas earned somewhat of a consolation – a few Chippewas won individual championships.
Sophomore distance runner Tecumseh Adams won an individual MAC championship in the 3k with a time of 8:36.56. Junior hurdler Renaldo Powell also won an individual championship in the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 8.06.
Senior multi-event athlete Josh Kettlewell won an individual championship in the heptathlon with a score of 5,465.
“Honestly, going into it, it wasn’t about doing something crazy good to get an individual championship,” Kettlewell said. “I was focused on bettering my score for a chance to get in the NCAA championships.”
Kettlewell’s teammate and training partner, sophomore multi-event athlete Tim Reynolds, finished in third place Saturday after sitting in eighth on Friday.
“It’s very tough going into a second day being down that many points,” Kettlewell said. “He might break my record someday.”
The men’s 4x400-m relay team broke a school record by half a second with a time of 3:14.19. The relay team finished second, behind Akron.
The women’s 4x400-m relay team ran a season-best time of 3:46.25 and finished fifth.
Senior thrower George Flanner finished third in shot-put with a distance of 55 feet, 2 1/4 inches.
Sophomore sprinter Shawntoreah Turk ran a personal-best 400-m dash with at time of 54.74.
With the indoor season closing in a couple weeks, the remaining meets are the NCAA qualifier in Ames, Iowa on March 3, followed by the NCAA championship in Boise, Idaho a week after.
Kettlewell said there is no heptathlon in the qualifier. An NCAA committee selects heptathlon athletes for the championship. He said he’s excited to find out whether or not he will be selected and is training with the assumption he will go.
“Based on what I’ve seen so far, I have a chance to get in,” he said.
