Coyote Classic is a major success!

Last Saturday, Kansas Wesleyan University hosted its annual “Coyote Classic” track meet. This is a yearly opportunity for Kansas Wesleyan to host various schools within the KCAC, but it also gives KWU’s track athletes a chance to compete on their home track. The meet lasted two days, with the high jumpers competing at 1 pm on Friday, making Saturday the main event for everyone else. Saturday was booming with events going on from 9 am all the way until late in the afternoon. Plenty of schools were in attendance competing, many from the KCAC, including Friends, McPherson, Benedictine, Bethany, and others. Before we dive into Saturday’s meet, let’s take a look at how their season has been going up to this point

This Season 

Kansas Wesleyan Track and Field began back in early December with its indoor season, and they have been wildly successful. Since the outdoor season began in March, the team has been looking to build off of a 2nd place finish at the KCAC indoor thisyear. “We won indoor last year, as well as 2nd outdoors last year as well…” said Sprinter Kean Dinkel. “…we are just trying to build off that momentum and keep bringing home hardware.” Kansas Wesleyan is not shy of being in the news for its top performances on the track. The KWU track even had long-distance runner Evan Pearce named the KCAC athlete of the week. This came as a result of his performance in the 3000m Steeplechase and ranked 4th in the NAIA with a time of 9:19.22. Kansas Wesleyan continued to break records and drop jaws at this week’s meet as well. 

Saturdays meet

We caught back up with Kean after he ran his events to give us his input on the success from the day: “This weekend was really Good performances across the board for us. I ran the 4×100 and the 200 and took first in both events. Kdub took first in every sprint event, including the 100,200,400, and 4×100. I also got to break the school record in the 4×1 on our home turf, which was something we had been chasing all year that we knew we could accomplish. It felt good to run at home because it cuts out the travel time, and you can come in and be fresh and ready to go from the beginning. Overall, I think it was a very successful day for our coyotes!” On top of their record-breaking performance in the 4×100, KWU had a successful day across the board with Dinkel’s relay teammate, Austin Hash, finishing the 400-meter dash first out of the entire meet with a time of 48.9 seconds. Long distance had a pretty reputable day as well, with Ethan Ochana finishing third in the 5,000 meters at a time of 14:34 and Will Childers finishing fourth in the 3,000-meter steeplechase at 10:57. More stats from Saturday’s meet can be found here.

Volunteer work

There were also various athletes from KWU helping out with the meet as well. Diego Davis of the football team decided to spend His Saturday morning in the sand pits alongside some teammates. They were tasked by head football coach Matt Middleton tohelp rake the sand for the jumpers, an extra form of workout as spring practices ended last week. “It’s a little tiring raking out here, but it’s definitely an interesting experience. Getting to see all these athletes from all over the state perform at their highest level is awesome. Long jump is definitely something I don’t think I could do if I tried!” Davis mentioned. Long Jump and Triple Jump between both men and women lasted almost all morning, and multiple volunteers were needed.

Despite the hot weather and hot work, Saturday’s meet went down in the books as a success, and KWU hopes to continue to build on its effort throughout the season. The Kansas Wesleyan Track team travels to Fort Hays State next week for the “Alex Francis” classic as they aim to break more records and dominate the track for events to come!