Waynesburg Athletics Both Waynesburg University men’s and women’s track & field squads hit the road on Saturday to the University of Mount Union for the Jim Wuske Invitational as the final regular-season meet of the season for both teams.
Despite the event featuring no official team scoring, this did not deter any of the athletes from notching several impressive performances on the afternoon.
In regard to the men’s team, sophomore sprinter Isaiah Matthews was able to qualify for the finals of the 60-meter dash after posting a time of 7.29 seconds in the preliminary rounds, notching ninth place in the pool. Matthews was able to match that exact time in the finals to take eighth overall on the day.
For our long-distance runners, the duo of Luke Whisel & Andrew Kasper was able to notch top 10 placements as well for Waynesburg, this time in the 5,000-meter run, with Whisel placing seventh with a 16:33.85 time and Kasper not far behind with a 16:38.45, finishing ninth.
Moving to the field, there were also three more placers, with sophomore Kai Herbert able to notch a ninth-place feat as well by clearing 1.81 meters in the high jump.
To add to that, Garrett Hillard was able to place in two events, with a 17th-place finish in the shot put & 13th in the weight throw,
Aidan Shelly nearly cracked the top ten in the shot put, as well as marking a 17th-place finish in the weight throw.
As for the women, Michaela Rose was able to continue her recent string of success by finishing in the top 10 in two separate events. Rose was able to get fifth in the 200-meter dash with a time of 27.32 and even better in the 60 meter, with a fourth-place finish resulting from a time of 8.08.
Two more top ten finishes came from the track, as sophomore duo Joula Anderson & Gabrielle Reifsnyder took 10th & eighth place respectively, with Anderson doing so with a 5:51.50 in the mile and Reifsnyder notching a 20:20.02 in the 5,000 meter.
As for the field, Waynesburg women had a lone placer in junior Katherine Henderson, but she made it count as she put on a clinic by not only placing in three separate events but being in the top four for all of them. Henderson had fourth-place finishes in the high jump and long jump, along with notching her best showing in the triple jump with a third-place finish.
Both squads will be back in action when they travel to Youngstown State University on Feb. 24 as they begin to prepare for the PAC Championships.