Sports

Energetic track team rounding into shape

By Aaron Brandt GVL Staff Writer
1/31/2010

Bouncing back from a tiresome outing last weekend, the Grand Valley State University indoor men's and women's track teams hosted the GVSU Open on Friday. The event featured a perennial rival in Ashland University.

"To have Ashland in here and see a program that's beat us three times in a row was good, and I think we matched up pretty well with them," said GVSU head coach Jerry Baltes. "I am excited that some kids stepped up, which put us in a good position three meets into the season and four meets to go."

Coming off of a week in which Baltes described his team as "really tired," sophomore distance runner Shaylee Vanderbaan said this week's effort was much improved.

"I thought the meet went very well, and everyone looked pretty strong," she said. "We have been doing a lot of strength training lately and it seemed to pay off for us tonight. We just need to stay positive and keep working hard."

Those positive results included several top finishes on both the men's and women's teams.

For the women, sophomore Emily McKerchie and senior Christi Kettelhut took the top two places in the pole vault while senior Candace Wheat and sophomore Jade Hull finished one, two in the 60 meter hurdles.

Wheat and Hull joined junior Kayla Vallar and sophomore Chanelle Caldwell in the 4x400 meter relay, which the team won. With a time of 3:48.72, the four managed to top their previous provisional qualification.

Baltes put a majority of his distance runners in the mile, a move that resulted in Lakers filling three of the top four places for the event. Leading the milers was sophomore Karie McDonald, who finished with a time of 4:56.91.

The men's team scored a first place finish in the 4x400 meter relay, defeating Ashland by one tenth of a second in the process. Senior Nate Miller won the high jump with a mark of 6 feet 7 inches, and senior Ryan Rademacher took first place and provisionally qualified in the long jump with a jump of 23 feet 6.75 inches.

The results pleased Baltes, who recognized the team's recent battle with fatigue.

"We had solid energy and great finishes, so hopefully we are getting used to being tired," he said. "We still worked pretty darn hard this week, and I think that bodes well for the next few weeks as we back down a little bit more. I think we will be in a great position."

Several big meets loom in the future for GVSU, and after Friday's meet the team is a little closer to the finish, said sophomore distance runner Aaron Denner.

"This was a stepping stone for the rest of the season, specifically the GVSU Big Meet, where we want to do well," he said. "The distance runners are taking the week off so we can train for that meet, so we should be ready to go."

Before the team tackles the GVSU Big Meet on Feb. 12 and 13, they will travel to the University of Findlay for the Findlay Open on Feb. 5. The meet will be the first scored meet of the indoor season.

"Findlay is a scored meet, and we will go in there with the expectation of competing well, but at the same time we will probably run some kids in an off event and most of our distance kids won't race," Baltes said. "We just have to keep working hard and smart and take care of our bodies and get ready for the (GVSU Big Meet) at the end of next week."

abrandt@lanthorn.com

Comments: