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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

sports

IU relay teams prepare for Hoosier Hills

SFreshman mid-distance runner Adam Wallace competes in the 800 meter in January at Gladstein Fieldhouse

Junior Sydney Anderson approached the end of her leg of the women’s 4x400 meter relay Saturday, just slightly trailing Cincinnati’s team. She handed the baton off to sophomore Kendell Wiles almost simultaneously with Cincinnati’s.

It was up to Wiles and Cincinnati senior Kenya Woodall. The other events had wrapped up, so all eyes were on this race. IU Track and Field yelled and cheered for Wiles, Cincinnati did the same for Woodall.

Wiles and Woodall were neck-and-neck. Woodall stretched the lead to a few steps ahead. The runners came out of the final turn, into the last stretch of the race. The cheers of “Hoo Hoo Hoo, Hoosiers!” intensified while Wiles caught up to Woodall. Side-by-side, gunning for the finish line, they leaned over the line at the same time.

Woodall finished ahead of Wiles by 9 milliseconds.

“It was really exciting because I heard everyone screaming and we were this close to beating them,” Wiles said. “So it was fun.”

The relay squads will be in action Friday when IU Track and Field competes at Hoosier Hills in Gladstein Fieldhouse, the final home indoor meet of the season.

That relay team of Anderson, Wiles and freshmen Riley Egbula and Taylor Williams set a season-best in the 4x400 relay with its 3:44.17 time.

That is, until two weeks later at the Meyo Invitational, when Egbula, Wiles, junior Brittni King and Williams topped it by 0.04 seconds. After both performances, IU Coach Ron Helmer said Egbula and Williams have been starting to run at a really high level.

The men’s 4x400 team consists of sophomore Zach Reitzug, sophomore Daniel Kuhn, junior Marco Burkert and freshman Markevious Roach.

The last time they ran their relay, at the IU Relays, they took second place as Roach made a furious comeback in the last stretch to finish just ahead of Alabama and just behind Purdue. Helmer said Kuhn and Roach are the X-factors of the team.

The 4x800 meter teams don’t run that relay as much, as the Distance Medley relay is run at the Indoor National Championships instead of the 4x800.

The last time the Hoosiers ran the 4x800 was the Gladstein Invitational on Jan. 23, when both the men’s and women’s teams won their relays.

The women’s 4x800 team consists of redshirt sophomore Corinne Cominator, sophomore Brenna Calder, redshirt senior Brianna Johnson and junior Kellie Davis. The men’s runners are redshirt sophomore Kyle DuVall, sophomore Joe Murphy, senior Connor Martin and redshirt sophomore Eric Claxton.

Wiles and DuVall both noted the only noticeable difference in training for a relay versus training for an individual event is the handoffs. But surprisingly, as Wiles and Helmer pointed out, the teams don’t practice handoffs very often.

“If you see a good one, we practiced it enough,” Helmer said. “If you see a sloppy one, then we haven’t practiced it enough. Probably not more than once a week do we get up there and work on handoffs.”

At every meet, the intensity picks up dramatically for the relays.As Helmer said, the combination of the culminating events of a meet and the potential excitement in a relay, especially the 4x400, creates the atmosphere of cheering and screaming.

DuVall said he doesn’t notice the cheering that much when he’s running, however.

“It’s hard to say what goes through your mind because your mind just goes completely blank,” DuVall said. “(You’re) really just doing your best to focus on your specific job and what you’re supposed to do and cheering on your teammates.”

Wiles and DuVall both emphasized the importance of having good chemistry among their relay squads.

They said the handoffs require a lot of trust with their teammates, and the smallest stumble can be the difference in a race.

“Just knowing that you can trust your teammates when you get the baton, that they’re going to do exactly what you want them to do,” Wiles said. “Either way, it’s really important to have good chemistry, getting along with one another is good. It keeps the mood good before the race.”

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