SOUTH BEND, Ind. – Illinois State track & field posted several personal-best and ISU top-10 performances in route to two third-place team finishes at the Notre Dame Invite on Saturday afternoon inside the Loftus Indoor Sports Center.
With their third-place team finishes, both the women's (104.5 points) and men's (106 points) teams beat Missouri Valley Conference foe, Loyola-Chicago and Big East competitor, Marquette. Notre Dame took the team title on the men's side followed by Louisville, while on the women's side Louisville took the team title and Notre Dame took second.
EVENT WINNERS
Highlighting the day's events were event winners Kameesha Smith, Brandon Ratliff, Hattie Plumb, Kellen Kravik and the women's 4x400-meter relay.
Smith, who competed in her first meet of the 2019-20 season, cleared a personal-best height of 1.77 meters (5-09.75 ft.) to win the high jump. Her mark is currently the best in the Valley, No. 5 all-time in ISU history and ranks No. 17 in the NCAA.
Joining Smith moving up the top-10 lists today was freshman Brandon Ratliff, who won the 60-meter hurdles with a personal-best time of 8.18 seconds. With that improvement, Ratliff moves up from No. 10 to T-No. 5 in the ISU record books.
Seniors Hattie Plumb and Kellen Kravik secured their first wins of the season in their events. Plumb, who won the 600-meter last weekend, competed in and won the first open 400m of her career with a time of 56.92 seconds, which is third-fastest time in the Valley.
Kravik cleared a height of 5.00 meters (16-04.75 ft.) to win the pole vault and become just the second person to clear at least 5.00 meters in the pole vault in the Valley this season. Redbird sophomore Eddie Winner is the other person to do so and the duo is current ranked No. 1 (Winner) and No. 2 (Kravik) in the MVC this season.
The women's 4x400-meter relay team of Jaclyn Greci, Rachel Hickey, Audrey Harrod and Hattie Plumb posted the best time by a Redbird 4x400 relay this season, clocking in at 3:50.51 to win the event. The time is the fastest in the Valley so far.
MOVING UP THE ISU TOP-10 LISTS
Smith and Ratliff are just two of six Redbirds who moved up the ISU top-10 lists based on their performances at the Notre Dame Invite. Joining the two event winners are a trio of weight throwers and a hurdler.
The trio of weight throwers all notched personal-best marks and finished fourth, fifth and sixth in the event, respectively. Redshirt-junior Sydney Laufenberg was the top finisher for ISU, posting a mark of 19.13 meters (62-09.25 ft.) to move from No. 6 to No. 3 all-time in Illinois State track & field history.
Senior thrower Tayler Weaver's recorded a personal-best mark in the weight throw for the second-straight meet. Her throw of 18.75 meters (61-06.25 ft.) is the sixth-best mark in ISU history and No. 4 in the MVC.
Entering the top-10 list for the first time in her career, sophomore Faith Ayodele's throw of 18.44 meters (60-06 ft.) is No. 8 all-time in the ISU record books.
Freshman Jaden Johnson became the third freshman to jump into the ISU top-10 in the 60-meter hurdles this season after posting a personal-best time of 8.30 seconds. His time is No. 10 is ISU track & field history.
PERSONAL-BEST PERFORMANCES
Weight Throw – Amiri Buchanan, 16.77 meters
High Jump – Austin Rauch, 2.10 meters
60m – Kai Larson, 7.01 seconds
60m – Rebecca Waite, 8.01 seconds
200m – Kai Larson, 22.07 seconds
200m – Micah Amerson, 22.31 seconds
200m – Jacki Greci, 25.56 seconds
200m – Rebecca Waite, 26.12 seconds
400m – Destiny Reid, 58.66 seconds
400m – Jalen Hunter, 51.79 seconds
Mile – Annie Moore, 5:04.14
Mile – Olivia Duax, 5:39.37
3,000m – Emma Argo, 10:28.54
3,000m – Tyler Polak, 8:55.14
QUOTES FROM DIRECTOR OF TRACK & FIELD/CROSS COUNTRY, JEFF BOVEE
On the meet overall and the top performances of the day:
"Overall, we had a lot of ups and downs today. We had some stellar performances in a lot of areas, in particular the women's weight throw where we had all kinds of personal bests. The men's hurdles were another highlight for us. We now have three freshmen on our all-time top-10 list and are ranked very high in the Valley right now. The win in the women's 4x400-meter was another one of the main highlights of the day. Kameesha (Smith) coming into her first competition and going for a school record and a bar that probably gets her into the NCAA Championships – that was a big-time performance for her. There was a lot of consistency in the men's and women's vault. I was very pleased with the women's 400. We had some women run that event for the first time and we went 1-2-3 in that event."
On building off of today's performances:
"We had a few athletes that were dinged up and weren't with us this weekend. The key next week will be to piece things together just a little bit more. We're just trying to be the best team that we can be, and I thought we made some good progress today and we showed that we had a lot of depth. That's going to be key for us as we go and try to compete for a championship down the road."
On other notable performances from the day:
"Kimathi's (Johnson) debut 3K, coming off of a little set back that he had, it was nice to see him back especially doing something he's never done before. He sits third in the Valley in that. Austin (Rauch) in the high jump in only his second meet going almost seven feet is fantastic. Kevin (Koski) had a seven-second all-time best in the mile. He goes 4:15 in his collegiate debut and recorded negative splits and for a 5K/10K guy, that's showing some pretty good wheels."
UP NEXT
The Redbirds will travel to Lincoln, Nebraska next weekend for the adidas Classic on Saturday, Feb. 1. The meet is slated to begin at 11:30 a.m.
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