BIG EAST Indoor Championships

I was hoping to get this posted earlier this week, but time flies during the middle of the season! Well, as I am sure that you already know the BIG EAST Indoor track and field championships were last weekend at the Armory in New York City... and with apologies to Charles Dickens, I can only say that it was the best of times and it was the worst of times.

The best of times in the sense that it is conference weekend and conference is what we work toward everyday. The best of times in the excitement that we all feel as we get ready to compete to the best of our ability at the biggest meet of the season for us thus far. The best of times in that we had several PRs and set a new school record in the 4x800m relay.

The worst of times surfaced early Friday morning when the team arrived at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport to find that our flight had been cancelled. Due to a winter storm hitting the eastern seaboard, American Airlines straight up cancelled numerous flights to several airports in the New York area. Ultimately, the team ended up on an 8:40pm flight from O’Hare to Washington DC. After arriving in DC around midnight, the team took a bus to the team hotel in Fort Lee, NJ finally arriving at approximately 4:30am.

A few other teams experienced travel difficulties, but most of the teams that flew only had issues with delays. We ended up being to only team to arrive at such a late (or early) hour. I attempted to lobby the games committee to move the Saturday schedule back a couple of hours to accommodate our travel difficulties, but it was to not avail. They felt, that although our travel problems were the worst that they could remember, the precedent was that teams in the past had travel difficulties and no change was made to the schedule. I told the games committee that our team was tough and despite our travel problems, that would wouldn’t make any excuses and would come out and compete. I was right.

The first event that we had some compete on Saturday morning was the men’s pole vault at 10am. Redshirt Junior Nick VanDeraa certainly didn’t show any signs of fatigue as he set a lifetime best, jumping 15-3 making him the #2 indoor vaulter in MU School history. Shortly after the start of the men’s vault was the start of arguably one of the most grueling indoor events; the men’s heptathlon. Senior Tom Sage and sophomore transfer Mike Laabs both busted out to strong starts, both setting PRs in their first two events the 60m and the long jump. These two guys were really rolling. Things were looking up for the team when a combination of factors forced a delay of about three hours between the heptathlon long jump and the heptathlon shot put. Ordinarily there is about thirty minutes between events. Under normal circumstances this would be nothing more than an inconvenience. But for two guys on a roll and working mostly on adrenaline, this was about the worst thing that could have happened. Whatever momentum Tom and Mike had was dashed. The rest of day one in the heptathlon, the shot put and the high jump, would be a struggle at best. On the bright side, they both finished the first day with personal best scores for the first day of competition, but everyone involved felt that there could have been so much more.

The rest of Day 1 consisted of mostly prelims in the running events (except the 5k and DMR) and a few finals in the field events. On the women’s side Carrie Schmid took home 5th place in the women’s pole vault, and our women’s DMR team of senior Cassie Peller (1200m – 3:27.8), sophomore Katlin Millin (400m – 57.4), senior Kaitlyn Chambers (800m – 2:16.1) and sophomore Jayne Grebinski (1600m – 5:11.0) took home 7th place.

For the men, day 1 resulted in both Mike Boedeker and Mike Heim making the final in the weight throw with Mike Boedeker placing 7th. The weight throw was frustrating in that both Boedeker (56-7.5 - #5 All-Time) and Heim (54-5.25 - #8 All-Time) threw about 3-4 foot PRs yet Boedeker only managed to get a 7th place. Both marks, based on the conference performance list coming into the competition, would have place significantly higher but just as both Mikes were on so was the rest of competition. I think you always anticipate that everyone else will step it up and raise their level of performance for a conference meet, but the weight throw this year was really something else!

As for the rest of day 1, the men’s DMR team of freshman Peter Bolgert (1200m - 3:03.7), junior Antonio Jones (400m - 50.4), freshman Johnny Wright (800m – 1:57.1), and redshirt sophomore transfer Mark Kopecki (1600m – 4:15.9 with a 2:02 800m split!) took 8th place.

Day 2 brought the finals. For the women’s team Cassie Peller, as she has been all year, was the star of the meet for MU. Cassie narrowly missed becoming Marquette first female BIG EAST champion when she was narrowly edged out at the line after leading the final couple of laps to finish 2nd in the mile. She came back to lead off our 4x800m relay team the placed 2nd and set a new school record in the process. Cassie’s blistering 2:12.1 lead off leg gave the team an early lead and would have been good enough of a new school record in the open 800m! Sophomore Katlin Millin (2:16.4), senior Kaitlyn Chambers (2:15.8), and redshirt sophomore Sarah Verdoliva (2:14.6) rounded out the record setting squad.

Sophomore Rachel Thiel erupted in the women’s shot put, taking 6th place and throwing 46-11.5 which makes her #5 on the all-time list. All six of her throws were above her previous PR. Sophomore Erynn James jumped 5-7 to place 6th in the high jump. Senior Kaitlyn Chambers placed 6th in the 1000m with a time of 2:55.81, and redshirt sophomore Sarah Verdoliva placed 8th in a PR and #6 all-time mark of 2:13.81.

For the men day 2 saw a couple of scorers on the track as freshman Tyler O’Brien run 22.15 and place 6th in the 200m, and redshirt sophomore Eric Meissner placed 8th in a tactical 800m finishing in 1:56.10. In the field senior Raymond Bratchett and freshman Nick Byom tied for 7th place as each jumped 6’5.5” in the high jump.
The men’s heptathlon resulted with Tom Sage placing 8th and both Tom and Mike Laabs recording PR final scores. The amazing thing about the heptathlon this year was that every person ahead of Tom set a personal best, and in some cases those PRs were in the 300-500 point range. For those of you not familiar with the scoring system, improving your score by that amount may be common for a beginner (and there were a couple of talented beginners in there), but for a majority of the field to do so is almost unheard of. I spoke with several coaches from other teams and none of them had seen anything like it. Going into the competition, Tom was ranked #2 in on the conference performance list. Tom, along with the #1 person on the list had significantly better scores than just about everyone else, so it was very surprising to see how thing played out.

Now, the majority of the team is getting ready for the outdoor season. Cassie Peller will compete at the Alex Wilson invite this upcoming weekend and try to improve her standing in the mile on the national list.

I hope to post more frequently, as I want to be able to offer a little insight as to what is happening with the team this season. If you have any questions, feel free to ask away in the comments and I will do my best to answer in future posts.

Coach Rogers

GO MARQUETTE!!