Admin (Garrett Zatlin)
Jan 23, 20218 min
Saturday is sure to be jam-packed with plenty of action and a plethora of exciting results. But what about what happened on Friday night? We take a look back at some of the big performances that caught our eye...
There's something exciting about seeing a "3" as the first digit of a mile time, and thats exactly what we saw on Friday night at both the Woo Pig Classic and the Samford Invitational.
Arkansas' Amon Kemboi moved up in distance to the mile after making his season debut in the 1000 meters last weekend. Despite a strong field keeping things competitive, the former Campbell runner was simply too good for the field and dropped a new personal best of 3:58 en route to the overall win.
Truthfully, this performance was hardly a surprise for a guy of Kemboi's caliber. He has run 7:44 for 3000 meters before and just ran 2:23 for 1000 meters. He clearly had enough turnover to run this kind of time. Even so, his 2020 cross country season, while certainly very strong, wasn't quite as dominant as we expected it to be, so his early-season performances on the indoor oval have been very encouraging so far.
As for Cameron Ponder, it's hard not to be excited for the Furman runner who essentially soloed a 3:59 mile with the help of a pacer (Ryan Adams). Ponder had been flirting a few seconds above the four minute mile barrier for a few seasons, but just dropped a huge personal best and has clearly elevated his fitness to a new level.
Every year, a new Paladin miler seems to come out of nowhere and emerge as a nationally competitive name. Sure enough, that was the case for Ponder this winter. We'll be excited to see what else he has in store this season.
We should also highlight a few other men's mile performances, even if they didn't run under four minutes.
Major kudos to Davis Bove (LSU) and Brendan Hebert (Texas). Those two had phenomenal races of their own in Fayetteville, running 4:00 and 4:01, respectively. These were two names making strong and steady improvements over the last few seasons and it looks like they have carried that momentum to the indoor oval.
Bove is proving that LSU has a distance talent that they can rely on while Hebert gives the Texas Longhorns additional depth in the mile, validating Coach Pete Watson as one of the better middle distance coaches in the country.
They may not have broken the four minute barrier this weekend, but they both have a ton of confidence and have only been trending upwards for as long as we can remember. Don't be surprised if one (or both) of these men crack the four minute barrier later this year.
Finally, let's give a quick shoutout to Alex Stitt. The Oklahoma State freshman is having no problems adjusting to life in Stillwater, Oklahoma after running a very strong time of 4:02 in his collegiate debut. The New Zealand native could be a problem in the future if this was just a rust-buster for him.
The Arkansas women were going all-in on the 3000 meters during Friday's Woo Pig Classic and the end results were incredibly strong (although hardly surprising). Despite Katie Izzo being the initial favorite, it was Lauren Gregory who broke away from the field, looking smooth in the final moments of the race to run a huge time of 9:01 for 3000 meters.
Now, admittedly, that's not a personal best, but it is fairly close to her personal best of 8:55 and it signals that she is nearing her elite-level form that we saw from her in the winter of 2019. After a strong cross country season and a 4:39 mile in her season opener, Gregory's stock is sky high right now.
As for the rest of her teammates, they were plenty impressive in their own right. Logan Morris has continued her breakout year with a huge 9:09 (3k) personal best while Katie Izzo settled for a solid time of 9:12 (3k).
After that, we saw Gracie Hyde (9:23), Abby Gray (9:27) and Taylor Ewert (9:27) round out the Arkansas sweep. It was an outstanding display of depth and it gives fans of the sport a greater perspective of just how talented this team is as a whole.
Their past few races may not have been on the grass, but it's hard not to look at this Arkansas cross country squad for the upcoming winter season and not think more highly of them. The most lethal weapon that a cross country squad can have is momentum and depth...and the Razorbacks have both right now.
My goodness was Texas freshman Graydon Morris impressive in his collegiate indoor track debut. The first-year Longhorn runner had a few modest results during cross country, but to start out your indoor track season with a massive 3k time of 8:01 is not something that we were expecting.
Morris was a stud in high school, owning personal bests of 8:50 for two miles and 14:27 for 5000 meters. We figured he could have an instant impact on this Texas roster, but we're now talking about him cracking the 8:00 barrier and eventually putting himself in a position to (potentially) qualify for the indoor national meet later this winter.
The future is looking bright for men from Austin, Texas. Morris looks like the real deal, they just added freshman and 1:46 runner Yusuf Bizimana to their team and Crayton Carrozza ran 3:59 for the mile last winter as a freshman.
Don't sleep on the exciting young talent that this Texas roster has added. They could be a major problem on the track over the next few years.
Shafiqua Maloney has been a 200 meter and 400 meter runner for almost the entirety of her career at the University of Arkansas...until the tail-end of last winter. The Razorback runner posted a surprisingly strong time of 2:11 in her 800 meter debut last year and later went to the SEC Indoor Championships where she ran a personal best of 2:09 in the prelims and then another personal best of 2:08 in the finals.
Fast forward to last weekend, and Maloney started her season by matching her (prior) personal best with a 2:08.
And now on Friday? Well, it's safe to say that she's getting the hang of it.
Maloney dropped a huge personal best of 2:05.52 to win the women's 800 meters. She solidified herself as a true national contender in the half-mile distance and validated suspicions from last year that she could be a national threat in the event.
From 2:11 to 2:09 to 2:08 to 2:05, few middle distance runners in the country are more dangerous than Maloney right now. She's becoming increasingly more comfortable with the half-mile distance and it's clearly showing in he results.
We don't know when she'll hit her peak, but as of right now, she's on fire and doesn't appear to be slowing down anytime soon.
As for Thomson, we have to give credit where credit is due. After running 2:46 for 1000 meters last weekend, the Arkansas veteran threw together a very impressive double on Friday. She ran 4:41 for the mile and then came bak to run 2:07 for 800 meters. That's two personal bests in less than two hours!
After such a strong season opener and a pair of personal bests off of a double, Thomson is gaining some confidence. She could be a name to watch as she continues to feed off of the success of her recent performances.
We spoke in our meet preview about how the women's 1000 meter races at Virginia Tech could create some fireworks this weekend. Sure enough, we got plenty of fireworks, although they came on both the men's and women's sides.
In the women's race, it was Clemson's Laurie Barton (a former Virginia Tech runner) throwing down a jaw-dropping personal best of 2:42 for 1000 meters, breaking the previous school record of 2:43 held by Natoya Goule.
Any time you break a Natoya Goule record, you are in some seriously elite company.
Barton was a stud last year, but it looks like she has completely revamped her fitness to an entirely new level. She may have "only" run 2:05 in the 800 meters last weekend, but running 2:42 for 1000 meters is another level of fast. She took down a field which featured top middle distance talents such as Sarah Edwards (VT unattached), Grace Boone (VT) and Leigha Torino (Duke), all of whom ran under 2:50.
The men's race, however, was arguably just as impressive. With a few pro runners entered in this race, we got to see depth in a 1k race that we're not used to seeing.
Virginia Tech alum Neil Gourley took home the win in a blistering time of 2:18, but the bigger development was seeing Diego Zarate (VT unattached) close behind in an incredible mark of 2:19 for the five-lap race.
Despite not having any indoor track eligibility remaining, Zarate does have outdoor track eligibility remaining, so he'll be a name that we need to keep an eye on as we move into the spring. Running 2:19 in late January is no joke.
Behind them was Willy Fink (District Track Club) in a time of 2:21 followed by a large contingent of Virginia Tech runners. Bashir Mosavel-Lo posted a strong time of 2:22 while teammates Ben Fleming and Antonio Lopez Segura each ran 2:23.
Despite Coach Ben Thomas now overseeing the Oregon Ducks, the Virginia Tech Hokies continue to produce some of the more impressive middle distance runners in the country. Coach Eric Johannigmeier hasn't had quite the same level of success that Thomas once had, but that's an unrealistically high bar. Coach Johannigmeier has done a great job with this program and deserves some credit for maintaining a steady level of strong performances out of this team.
It turns out that the dramatic uptick in fitness that we saw from the Oklahoma State duo of Taylor Roe and Gabby Hentemann this past fall was no fluke. They just ran 4:39 and 4:41, respectively, at the Woo Pig Classic. That's a big step in the right direction and proof that they were actually as good as we thought they were. We'll be interested to see how they fair in an event like the 3000 meters or 5000 meters.
North Carolina's Brandon Tubby and Connor Lundy had strong debuts in the mile, running a pair of 4:04's to go 1-2 in the overall results. That's a solid debut and a nice display of speed for a longer distance guy like Lundy. How that performance translates to the longer distances has yet to be seen, but it can only help him in more tactical races.
The Furman sophomore duo of Ares Reading and Noah Dolhare went 1-2 at the Samford Invitational on Friday, posting times of 8:12 and 8:16, respectively. Do those performances blow you out of the water? No, not quite, but they do show great progression from these two runners and they lead us to believe that they can be valuable contributors on the cross country course in the near future. The Paladins aren't a perfect team, but the recent rise of Ponder, as well as Reading and Dolhare, has the Furman men in a great position moving forward.
Solid performance from NC State's Savannah Shaw. She ran a respectable mile time of 4:45 at the Hokie Invitational to take home the win over Michaela Meyer (Virginia unattached). Meyer is a solid talent and although she's more of an 800 meter runner, any win over her has to be considered as a positive.
Nice runs by Sam Van Dorpe (USC) and Jonathan Schwind (Lipscomb) at the Woo Pig Classic and Samford Invitational, respectively. Both of these guys ran 1:49 for 800 meters and although that's still outside of the traditional national qualifying range, it does set up both men to realistically pursue a spot to NCAA's later this season.
The women's 800 field at the Woo Pig Classic consisted of more than just Shafiqua Maloney and Kennedy Thomson. Alyssa Brewer (USC), Stephanie Moss (Oklahoma State), Lilly Lavier (Oklahoma State) and Gabija Galvydyte (Oklahoma State) all ran under 2:10, posting times of 2:07, 2:07, 2:08 and 2:09, respectively. We knew that the Oklahoma State women had a quietly deep group of young women in the middle distance events, but to actually see them run 2:07, 2:08 and 2:09 in a single race has to be super encouraging for the Cowgirls coaching staff.