<sday, April 21, Carleton sent most of its men’s track and field team to the Capitol City Championship hosted by Hamline in St. Paul. For the second straight week, inclement weather threatened to disrupt the meet, but the winds died down enough to allow several Carleton athletes to enjoy huge performances.
Marcus Huderle ’14 ran a seven-second personal best in the 1500 meters, finishing eighth in 4:04. Despite an aggressive start, Kian Flynn ‘12 fell short of his 800 meter personal record. Fortunately, he was racing in the 1500 meters and comfortably ran 4:09, shaving three seconds from his personal best.
“I just didn’t have the speed for the 800 today, but thankfully when I got there I still had 700 meters to go,” a pleased Flynn confided.
Josh Campbell ’13 also ran a season best 4:16 in the event. Campbell warmed the hearts of his teammates by eating dinner with them earlier this week.
Robert Wakeley ’12 took third in the javelin, heaving the spear 44.50 meters. In his track debut, Caleb Rosenow ’12 took sixth with a throw of 42.58 meters. Jameson Siegert ’11 surpassed 40 meters for the first time with a throw of 40.64 meters, good enough for ninth place. Siegert further contributed to the team by designing a new and intimidating track team poster that will likely become a hot item for students to remove from bulletin boards and post on the walls of their rooms (but please at least leave them up until conference is over!).
Jacob Hoerger ’14 demonstrated his comfort with the 5000 meters with an unreal burst of closing speed. Taking it into another gear in the last 200 meters, Hoerger motored across the finish line in a personal best 15:48, while teammate Aaron Hirsh ’13 followed in 16:07. Michael Knudson ’11 and Ben Parks ’11 set personal bests and finished close together at 17:03 and 17:05.
A strong headwind slowed times in the 110 meter hurdles. Adrian Carpenter ’14, Dylan Bothun ’11, Dylan Cheever ‘13, Siegert, and CJ Dale ’13 competed for the Carls. Carpenter had the most success, qualifying for finals and placing seventh. On a tough day to high jump, Lobo James ’14 and Cheever took fourth and sixth place, respectively, each with jumps of 1.78 meters.
James Morrissey ‘12 ran the 400 meters in 52.24 to break his personal best by more than half a second. Jordan Butler ’13 and Michael Austin ’13 finished in 54.35 and 54.87 seconds in the 400 meters. The 200 and 100 meters were both greatly slowed by wind, but in the 100 meters Josh Estes ’14 and Dale managed to sneak under 12 seconds.
Matt Harrison ’13 led the way for the Carls in the 800 meters, clocking 2:05. Michael Tolan ’14 ran 2:10, Phil Juda ’13 crossed in 2:12, and Butler ran his first 800 of the season in 2:13. Siegert, Dale, and Cheever all set personal bests in the discus, while Ben Langfeldt ’12 threw the hammer a personal best 34.86 meters in the scariest of the throwing events.
Dale was the first Knight in the long jump, with a jump of 6.12 meters. Both Jordan Soteros ’14 and Cheever jumped season bests in the long jump. Soteros jumped 6.05 meters while Cheever jumped 5.73 meters. In the triple jump freshmen Estes and Courtney James ’14 established personal bests. Estes jumped 11.90 meters and James jumped 11.48 meters.
On Wednesday, two Carls took to the track at Hamline to run a lonely 10,000 meters at the somewhat pretentiously named All-American 10k. Racing through falling snow and darkness, Colin Sinclair ’11 and Guthrie Cunningham ’14 braved the longest event contested on a track (25 laps, or about 6.2 miles).
Sinclair, running his second ever 10,000, opened up his stride and embraced the snow to finish in 32:36, shattering his personal best by 1:21. Cunningham ran negative splits and dueled with a doomed Gustavus runner before pulling away and running 33:09 in his first track 10,000.
“It was a cosmic race” said Cunningham, describing the dark and mostly deserted Hamline track as a “moonscape brushed with a dusting of snow.”
In Sinclair’s words, “It was beautiful out there, but the stadium was so empty I was afraid the meet officials would leave before our race was over.”
The Knights were back in action on Thursday at the Macalester Twilight (rescheduled from Wednesday) and then will head down to Winona on Saturday to run at the Saint Mary’s Open and enjoy the bluffs along the Mississippi. Not surprisingly, rain is in the forecast.
Colin Sinclair is a member of the men’s track team.