The Eastern track and field team competed on April 12 at Roos Field, where the Eagles earned six more Big Sky Conference qualifying marks and had 18 event winners.

Senior hurdler Steven Warner and junior thrower Olivia Midles thought Eastern performed well at the Pelluer Invite. “As a school I think we killed it,” Warner said. “It was a great preview of what a lot of guys can do. I think things clicked for a lot of people on Saturday.”

“I think we represented ourselves very well,” Midles said. “A lot of our athletes have been training really hard, I think we did a good job at getting a lot of [personal records].”

The event started out with Midles earning a personal record of 195-10 in the hammer throw. Midles’ record ranked her second in hammer throw school history.

Midles is getting closer to the top school record of 199-8 set by Nicole Luckenbach in 2010.
“I think I did pretty well, I’m excited about it,” Midles said. “I [personal recorded] by about seven feet so that’s exciting.”

Sophomore thrower Kelsie Forcier also earned a personal record of 180-9; this put her in second place in the hammer throw. Forcier also earned second place in the shot put event with a Big Sky qualifying throw of 45-7 1/2.

Junior thrower Emma Murillo placed third in the hammer throw and qualified with a throw of 179-11. Another thrower who qualified to play at the Big Sky conference meet was Vania Tauvela who tossed 165-6 in the hammer throw, a solid throw for fifth place.

Gaining a personal record in the shot put, sophomore thrower Morgan Romey threw 48-6 1/4, while Freshman thrower Samantha Baker qualified for the Big Sky Championships in the javelin throw with a toss of 139-9 1/2 to earn fourth place.

Freshman pole vaulters Anandae Clark and Courtney Bray each had personal records. Both Eagles reached a height of 12-4 in the pole vaulting event. Clark ended up placing first, and Bray placed second.

Senior thrower Jon Buchanan had a throw of 56-10 in the shot put event. He earned third place in the hammer throw with a toss of 193-5.

Junior thrower Jordan Arakawa also had a good performance in the hammer with a toss of 216-8; senior thrower Zack Nielson had success when he passed 200 feet in the hammer throwing event. Nielson won the discus event with a throw of 161-11.

Senior sprinter Whitney Leavitt had a time of 25.54 in the 200-meter race, senior sprinter Angelica Rodriguez had a time of 58.48 in the 400-meter race and junior distance runner Katie Mahoney had a time of 2:17.73 in the 800-meter race.

The women’s 4×100 relay team had a time of 47.43 and the 4×400 team finished with a time of 3:59.26. The men’s 4×400 team also won their race with a time of 3:21.24.

Sophomore sprinter Kyle Caviezel qualified for the Big Sky Championship in the 100-meter race with a time of 10.77. Sophomore sprinter Obinna Nnadi finished in second place in the same race with a personal best time of 10.92. Warner had a time of 14.50 in the 110-meter hurdles. Warner hurdled to first place by a millisecond.

Junior sprinter Brad Michael came in first place and freshman sprinter Austin Upmeyer finished in second place in the 400-meter race. Both of their times could not be recorded because of a timing system error.

Junior distance runner Quin Olivas succeeded in the 800-meter race with a time of 1:57.21.

Freshman jumper Trenton Osborn had a distance jump of 45-6 1/2 in the triple jump event. He launched into a good performance in the long jump with a distance jump of 23-4 1/2 to earn first place.

Warner explained how Pelluer changed the way he will compete during the rest of the season. “I thought my start and everything was pretty good in the race,” Warner said. “I know I can work a little bit more on just trying to be quicker over the top of the hurdles.”

Midles is focused on staying with her game plan as a thrower. “I’m going to try to keep everything as normal as possible,” Midles said. “I’m just trying to keep up with the consistency.”

The Eastern track and field team will be competing on April 16-19 in California at the Mt. SAC relays and the Long Beach Invitational.