Smith highlights Pride track and field's 2025-26 opening meet

DAVENPORT, Iowa - Getting their 2025-26 season started in the very familiar location of the St. Ambrose University Wellness and Recreation Center, the Clarke University track and field team saw some quality scoring performances that would lead to a second place team finish for the men and a sixth place finish for the women at the Frigid Bee Invite on Saturday.

The Pride produced four different first place finishers and 11 other top-three finishes between both teams with the highlight performance coming from senior Gavayne Smith, hitting an early NAIA National B Standard in the 60-meter dash with his first place time of 6.80 seconds to earn the finals win by 0.15 seconds and breaking his own school record by 0.06 seconds.

CU's other event win on the men's side also came on the track when Cord Nietert earned a slim 600-meter win over teammate John Raven with Nietert producing a 1:25.65 ahead of Raven's 1:26.57 in his first race as a member of the Pride while jumpers produced the women's victories with junior Gracee Roig winning the triple jump with a 10.94-meter best jump ahead of freshman De'Aijah Tullis' third place 10.64 while Tullis produced that fourth event win with a 1.50-meter clearance in the high jump.

Clarke also produced the second place mark in the women's high jump with Isabelle Matthews clearing 1.45 meters as part of a busy day for the senior as she produced a third place long jump distance of 5.19 meters and scored more points for the Pride in the 200-meter dash with a 28.45-second sixth place finish as Roig also produced a fourth place finish in the long jump at 5.14 meters with the final top-three finisher for Cu's women came int he pole vault, where Malia Beich cleared 2.75 meters for second place.

Back with the men's events, joining Smith with a scoring performance in the 60 was junior Jake Etherington as the Farnborough, England native finished in fifth place in the finals with a 7.04-second race then he posted a 35.53 in the 300 meters for a runner-up placement as Nietert also ran a leg of the Pride's 4x400-meter relay with Nick Zaprianov, Chesney Capron, and Bryce Kondos as that group produced a fifth place time of 3:33.85.

A pair of newcomers joined Raven in making strong first impressions for CU's men with Keifer Landes finishing as the pole vault runner-up, similar to Beich, with his 4.40-meter bar clearance then Ja'kobe Kizer had a two second place finishes in the long jump and triple jump with his best long jump going 6.78 meters breaking the school record by 0.08 meters and his best triple jump getting 13.77 meters.

Full results can be found here: https://milesplit.live/meets/720172/events

Clarke track and field will head right back to Davenport, Iowa next week when they compete at the Finals Week Invite and Multi where Zaprianov will participate in the Heptathlon on Thursday and Friday, Dec. 11-12 and the rest of the competitors on the team competing on Friday, Dec. 12 to finish out the fall semester.