Brianna Barnes reporter
The Pitt State indoor track and field teams won the Rumble in the Jungle Invitational at the Robert W. Plaster Center on Friday, Jan. 24. The women’s team compiled 174 points, while the men’s compiled 188.5. This was only the second meet of the season, giving the Gorillas a strong start.
“We are competing well. There’s always a lot to improve on, but I feel that on the track, the athletes are competing at a high level. They’re competing with each other and they’re putting themselves into a good position,” said Director of Cross Country and Track and Field, Kyle Rutledge. “We’ve had a lot of really good marks, a lot of PRS (personal records set), so that’s a good sign for early in the season. They feel good and we’re healthy, so they’re doing well right now.”
There were a lot of personal records set, especially for the men’s 60-meter dash and the women’s 60-meter hurdles. This strong start helps the coaches know where the team is, who they are as a team, and where their marks are.
“It (his performance) exceeded my expectations because this is my first one in a long while, so I didn’t expect to open up this fast, but I still expected myself to open up fast. This is probably my fastest season opening since I’ve been in college, so this is amazing right now,” said Antoine Evans Jr., a senior majoring in sports management and recreation, who ran the 60-meter dash and the 4 by 4 and got a PR in the dash.
The team did well, and many coaches were pleased with the performances, but there is always room for improvement.
“I look forward to getting my form and technique better and just to be quicker in between each hurdle,” said Kayvon Nubine, freshman majoring in nutrition, who ran the 60-meter hurdles and 60-meter dash, and got a PR in hurdles.
Not only did the teams win, but Pitt State had 8 men and 8 women obtain event victories.
“I think they have exceeded my expectations for what I had today. It’s still really early in the season; we’re still trying to progress each week and so we’re still training really hard,” said assistant track coach for sprinters, Jason Crow. “We did really well today. They’ve just been trying to compete rather than try to run fast. Victims happen usually when they do that.”
One thing Rutledge mentioned is the athletes need to learn how to handle the load and emotions of doing multiple events in a day. The athletes need to be able to make it count at the end of a meet when they’re tired but still have another event.
“Well, what we need to start doing better and is a key point is make sure we are having quality reps… It is early in season, mistakes are going to be made, but we can’t just kick the can down the road. We got to start figuring things out,” said Rutledge. “We got to figure out how to compete at a high level so that way we know what to expect when the time comes at the conference and national championship. Our kids are doing that. They’re competing very hard and aggressively and they’re not being afraid, which is a good sign. And then we’ll build off it.”