JOLIET, Ill. – The Michigan Tech track & field team capped its season at the St. Francis Fighting Chance Invite, highlighted by a school record in the men's 4x800m relay, as the squad posted six personal bests and five section champions in the season finale on Friday and Saturday in Joliet, Illinois.
"Fields at last chance meets have a tendency to go out rather fast as people try to press things at the end of their season. This often leads either to breakthroughs or tough showings," said Michigan Tech head coach Robert Young. "Our athletes did well managing this and had some good races despite the challenges of less-than-ideal pacing.
"It was fun to see our guys break the 4x800m relay record again. We don't really run that event since it's not at the NCAA championships, but it's fun to take advantage of the times we can run it. The warmer weather we found this weekend really benefited our middle-distance runners, and we saw some really nice racing from them.
Overall, we are really happy with the amount of growth we saw from the team this spring and are excited for what it means for next year and beyond. We are going to miss our seniors and I want to thank them for their contributions to our program. Though we aren't losing many, we are losing some significant leaders and filling their shoes will certainly be a challenge for next year's team."
Friday
For the second consecutive season, the Huskies rewrote the history books in the 4x800m relay at the St. Francis Fighting Chance Invite with the quartet of three freshmen and a junior as Landon Pestrue, Caden Karcher, Lucas Seng and Matthias Morse shaved over four seconds off of last year's record for a time of 7:51.64 to take fourth in the race.
Sam Shaver lowered her metric mile personal-record for the second straight weekend, knocking over 2.5 seconds off of her PB from the GLIAC Championships, running 4:40.87 in the second section of the 1,500m invitational.
Saturday
The Huskies 800m group and Austin Smelker's 400m were the highlights of day two at the oval office.
Smelker, in his third event of the meet, clocked an impressive 52.41 in the seventh section of the open 400m, besting the field by over 2.5 seconds.
Sam Shaver finished third overall in the open section of the 800m, her first race at the distance this season, to take second in the first section in a new personal record time of 2:18.38. Adeline Gobble took first in the second section in a time of 2:23.27.
Meanwhile, in the men's open 800m, Matthias Morse, doubling back after anchoring the 4x800m relay on Friday, took third in the event and first in the fifth section with a personal-best time of 1:55.56, dusting the field by nearly three seconds.
Broderick Stewart also came away with a section win in the event in a time of 2:03.34 in the seventh heat of the day.
Julia Moxey clocked a new 1,500m personal-best in her first race at the distance this season, running 5:02.75 to take fourth in the first section.
Luke Pravecek picked up a personal-best in the 1,500m to win his section in a time of 4:05.44 as Evan Balko took third in the fourth section in a personal-best time of 4:18.78.
