Jumps lead the way as Pride track and field opens 2023-24 indoor season

DAVENPORT, Iowa - Competing in their first of two indoor meets before the end of the fall 2023 semester, the Clarke University track and field teams finished the Frigid Bee Invite with a team win for the women and a team runner-up for the men on Saturday at St. Ambrose University.

The Pride women scored 167.5 team points led by the distance running events scoring 57 of those points but not far behind was the jumps, earning 46.5 points in the meet as jumps carried the men's 99-point team performance as their jumpers scored 38 of those 99 points.

In total between both teams, CU earned nine event wins including six on the women's side with five being races and the sixth coming in the high jump, where sophomore Isabelle earned the win with a clearance of 1.50 meters on her first attempt to edge out Grand View's Avril Maughan who also cleared 1.50 meters but took all three attempts to do so.

The running wins for the Clarke women saw five different freshman earn individual or contribute to a relay win with Gabrielle Dillard winning the 60-meter dash with a time of 7.93, Samantha Callahan earning a win in the mile with a 6:08.20, Lena Wilson finishing first in the 600-meter run at 1:55.65, and Megan Hageman winning the 3,000-meters with a 11:51.60. Dillard was on the winning 4x400 meter relay team that was her, Allena Rowland, Anyah Ranson, and Samantha Fowler finished with a 4:08.88 for the victory.

For the men, James Vandun earned a school record performance in the long jump as the senior earned the event win with a 6.70-meter jump on his fourth attempt to win the event by 0.1 meter and break the previous school-best mark 6.55 meters set back in January of 2019. Daniel Miller and Daniel Adams earned wins in their races as Adams won the 60-meter hurdles with a 8.56 time in the finals to win by 0.05 seconds and Miller earned a win in the 3,000-meters as he ran a 9:23.92.

Other record breaking performances came that didn't result in winning times both came in the 300-meter races as Rowland broke the women's record with a time of 40.96 and Brody Deitering grabbing the men's record with a 36.55 time. 

The rest of the solid point scoring in jumps came from a variety of members of the Pride as the women saw Emma Grant (3.20m) and Evelyn Lee (3.20m) score in the pole vault, Ranson (1.45m) and Kaiya Gonzalez (1.45m) also scoring in the high jump with Matthews, then Matthews (4.85m), Kayley Crain (4.72m), and Gracee Roig (4.48m) all scored in the long jump. The men scored in jumps with Deitering and Jake Rouse earning points with 3.95-meter clearances in the pole vault, Tyler Kell and Mofiyinfoluwa Alade earning points in the high jump with 1.97 and 1.87-meter clearnaces, then Brandon Martin (6.10m) and Jabron Lee (6.03m) joined Vandun in scoring in the long jump.

Full Results: http://milesplit.live/meets/583025/events 

The Pride will finish off the fall semester with a second-straight trip to Davenport as St. Ambrose will host the first indoor multi meet of the season in the Finals Week Invite next Friday and Saturday Dec. 8-9.