Spring Twilight opens outdoor season at ESU

Kellen Jenkins / The Bulletin

Sophomore graphic design major Larry Beamon hands off to senior business management major Michael Stephens during the 4x4. The 4x4 A team took first place during the Papa John's D-II Challenge meet.

With the change in season, track is moving from indoors to outdoors.

“We had a pretty good opening effort for the outdoor year,” said Evan Blackburn, graduate assistant. “It’s good to get some competition in before spring break. I was pretty pleased with everybody.”

Members of the Emporia State track team, right out of indoor season, competed in the ESU Spring Twilight at Welch Stadium on Wednesday. The switch to outdoor track brought added events and a change for the team.

“Well, it’s very different to go from indoor to outdoors,” said Jaclyn Sill, junior sprinter. “You add a lot of events and different distances. We had different people, and we had some different throwing events, and we did the 100 and the 4 by 1. But the biggest difference for us runners is the bigger track, and it’s so nice to get out on a bigger track because we just run faster.”

The ESU women’s 4 x 100 meter team finished first with a time of 49.49, edging out members of the Fort Hays State team by just under a second.

“We haven’t had a lot of chances to do 4 by 1 hand offs, but both of our 4 by 1 hand offs got up there and had some good runs,” Sill said. “Our women won and that was real exciting. We’re kind of young, but our freshman made off, and we were running without our national qualifier, Brooke Kent. Everybody really stepped up, and we had a good day on that, so that was really exciting.”

Senior distance runner Eric Wellman also took home first place in the 1500 meter for the Hornets with a time of 4:03:75 after struggling with a past injury.

“I’ve been trying to come back from an injury for the last; really it’s been almost two years, fighting a stress fracture,” Wellman said. “I’m trying to come back around, get back into shape and head in the right direction. I won the 1500. It wasn’t quite as fast as I was hoping for, but it’s a good start for this early in the season. I was hoping to build on that, get back to where I need to be.”

The Hornets carried 10 first-place finishes out of the meet with wins in the men’s 100 meter, 800 meter, 1500 meter, 3500 meter, 4 x 400 meter, triple jump and long jump and in the women’s 100 meter, 400 meter and 4 x 100 meter.

“It was a really good opening day for our whole team,” Sill said.

While opening day brought some challenges to the Hornets, many are focused on the rival Missouri Southern.

“We’re working hard to go after Missouri Southern, our bitter rival, and we’re not happy with them,” Wellman said. “We’re thinking about them while we’re practicing. They motivate us to work hard.”

While the Hornets have been training to keep up with Southern, staying healthy is key.

“Everyone just needs to stay healthy and keep improving, especially for Missouri Southern for sure,” said Brock Ternes, junior distance runner.

The early meet gave the Hornets a much needed tune-up and helped the team gauge where they stand.

“It’s just good at the start of the season, going into spring break,” Ternes said. “I think for the team just getting some competition under our belts and know where our competitors are. The training here is all about just getting faster. We pretty much have the base, now we just have to get some wheels.”