Track and field competes without stars

With two of its biggest stars resting, the IU track and field teams looked elsewhere for standout performances this Friday and Saturday at the Gladstein Invitational.

The Hoosiers hosted their third event of the season this weekend at Gladstein Fieldhouse. Several of IU’s athletes stepped up in the absence of seniors Derek Drouin and Andy Bayer, as the two did not compete.

One of these athletes was graduate student Scott Houston, who won the men’s pole vault with a successful vault of 5.2 meters.

“This is kind of early in the year, so to come out and put up a jump over 17 feet is always a good thing,” Houston said. “I think I was just doing what I had to do to get the W out and protect home track.”

The marquee events of the weekend were the men’s and women’s 3000-meter invitational races. Senior Zach Mayhew took second in the men’s race while junior Robby Nierman crossed the line fourth.

The winner, professional runner Lee Emanual, clocked in with the fastest time in the U.S. this year and third fastest in the world of 7:52.42.

In the women’s race, senior Kelsey Duerksen finished with the fastest time in the Big Ten this year and 5th fastest in school history of 9:20.56 on her way to the victory.

Duerksen also ran the 4x800-meter relay, an atypical event for her, she said.

“The people in my relay were mostly distance girls today,” Duerksen said. “It was really exciting to get to work on our speed a little bit and run a faster event. That was kind of new for us.”

Duerksen has already won two Big Ten Track Athlete of the Week awards this season and said she hopes her performance made a case for her to win a third.

“It would be exciting but we’ll have to see,” Duerksen said. “There will be more competition this time because I think a lot of Big Ten teams competed this weekend.”

Duerksen and fellow 3K-competitor Samantha Ginther, a sophomore, were the first mentioned when IU Coach Ron Helmer was asked who he was impressed with on the women’s team. Ginther finished in second place behind Duerksen in the 3000-meter run.

“We haven’t had any girls run that fast at this time of the year, so I thought their race was outstanding,” Helmer said. “A couple of the young pole vaulters started putting things in place, too. And Kyla Buckley settled herself back down a bit and did a far better job of competing in the weight throw, I thought.”

Buckley, a junior, finished fourth in the weight throw to accompany her third place finish in the shot put.

Another Hoosier on the men’s team that stood out included redshirt freshman Dylan Anderson, who took second in the men’s heptathlon after a strong showing in the long jump portion.

“With that performance he goes from being just a regular redshirt freshman to somebody that we can look to score some Big Ten points,” Helmer said. “He is part of a group of guys that I’ve seen start to position themselves as the ones we can count on when we need them at championship time.”