When the Big Ten Indoor Championships concluded Saturday at the SPIRE Institute in Geneva, Ohio, the Hoosiers found themselves where they expected to be all season: the middle of the pack. The men finished seventh and the women
finished 11th.
The men slightly improved their ninth-place standing from 2014, jumping from 40.5 points to 49, while the women dropped two spots from their ninth-place on a five-point drop, from 39 to 34.
“We’re a very middle-of-the-pack team this year,” IU Coach Ron Helmer said. “I’m a strong believer in only seeing what you’re looking for, so right now my overall feeling is that we have a lot of work to do before the outdoor Big Tens.”
Even though there was only slight improvement on the scoreboard, IU found more improvement on the leaderboards as it placed top-five athletes in 10 events this weekend, up from just seven events last season.
The top-five finishers were highlighted by senior Rorey Hunter running third in the men’s mile, junior Terry Batemon claiming third in the men’s pole vault, true-freshman Jill Whitman earning fifth in the women’s 3K and sophomore Nakel McClinton throwing fifth in the women’s weight throw.
Sophomore middle distance runner Tre’tez Kinnaird claimed the only Big Ten title on the team, winning the men’s 800-meter run in 1:48.89. Last season, He finished fourth in the men’s 600-meter run with a school-record effort.
“This is something I’ve wanted for a long time,” Kinnaird said. “Last year really hung with me, so I’ve been working all season for this title.”
Kinnaird led the entire 800 meters of the race by jumping to an early lead and forcing the rest of the field to catch him, a strategy that suits his aggressive running style.
After maintaining the lead for the entire race, Kinnaird reached the finish with Illinois’ Joe McAsey, who dove at the finish but could not overtake Kinnaird.
“They had his name up on the scoreboard first, and I was like, ‘Man, I hope that’s not right,’” Kinnaird said. “Then it changed and had me as the winner.”
Kinnaird had a rough first day Friday, only placing seventh in the men’s 800-meter preliminary run and nearly missing the eight-man cut with his worst 800 since the 2014 Gladstein Invitational.
This performance came after his participation in the disappointing Distance Medley Relay, a team the Hoosiers expected to be in the NCAA Indoor Championships but fell short and placed just 33rd in the
nation.
“Tre’tez had an ugly start to the weekend but did what all great competitors do,” Helmer said. “He managed a lot of negative things and ran an outstanding race. I couldn’t be more proud
of him.”
The sophomore Big Ten champion currently holds onto the final qualifying spot in the NCAA 800-meter Championship but will not know for sure if he is in the field until all of this weekend’s results are submitted.
One Hoosier who solidified her spot in the national pole vault field was junior Sophie Gutermuth, who broke yet another school record by vaulting an overall personal record of 4.34 meters, but only took home second place as Illinois’ Stephanie Richartz edged her out by just five
centimeters.
“This one felt really good,” Gutermuth said. “Not just because it was my best vault overall, indoors and outdoors, but because it put me seventh in the nation and kept me in nationals. Now I don’t have to worry about being on the bubble.”
Gutermuth broke her indoor school record by eight centimeters and her overall personal record by four centimeters to finish second in back-to-back years in the Big Ten Championships.
Junior Sydney Clute also vaulted a personal record of 4.14 meters to finish third and put a second Hoosier on the podium with
Gutermuth.
“Sophie did what Sophie does, and that’s break records,” Helmer said. “Sydney beat everyone she was prepared to defeat and set a personal record, so it was a good weekend for both of the girls’ vaulters.”
The men’s heptathletes, juniors Stephen Keller and Dylan Anderson, also placed in the top five and matched their projected positions, third and fourth. Keller reclaimed his victory in the friendly competition between him and his teammate with a personal record of 5,706 and a second-best total in IU history.
Like Kinnaird, Keller and Anderson also await other schools’ submissions before knowing if they place top-16 and qualify for nationals. They both sit at 10th and 15th in the nation,
respectively.
“I fully expected to be one of the guys on the team qualifying for nationals,” Keller said. “I won’t put limits on myself, and Coach (Jake) Wiseman and the other multi-athletes would say the same thing.”
The four athletes qualifying for nationals will await other result submissions and begin preparing for the national championships set to take place March 13-14. The remaining athletes will begin preparing for their first outdoor meet, the Big Ten/Pac 12 Challenge in Tempe, Ariz., March 28.
“The meet this weekend was a great reflection of where we are as a team,” Helmer said. “We won a few years ago, so I know what it feels like to be at the top, and I also know what it’s like to be on the bottom. I have full faith in this coaching staff to help take us where we want to be.”
