Hoosiers place first in two Big Ten events

The senior members of the IU track and field team commemorated their final Big Ten Championship with strong performances.

Reigning Big Ten Champion Kyla Buckley defended her title in the shot put, out-throwing top-seeded Dani Bunch of Purdue.

She did it with a personal record performance of 17.17 meters — a 19-centimeter improvement from her previous best.

The throw is second-best in school history and fifth-best in the NCAA.

“I think it’s no small accident that three of our medal winners were fifth-year veterans, and have all been All-Americans in the past,” IU Coach Ron Helmer said. “That exemplifies the value of experience and the value of age.”

Buckley continued the tradition of IU women’s throwers winning the Big Ten crown for seven consecutive years.

Fifth-year senior Kelsie Ahbe joined Buckley on the gold medal stand.

She cleared a season-best 4.20 meters to capture the conference title in the women’s pole vault and the second-best mark in program history.

The vault is one centimeter behind the school record, which also belongs to Ahbe.

“Kelsie was struggling,” Helmer said. “She told me that she heard what I saying, that I spoke to her heart. I don’t know if that had anything to do with it, but certainly she cleared her head and made the most of it. I was very proud of her.”

Sophomore Sophie Gutermuth matched Ahbe’s performance to claim second in the competition, the first of three Hoosiers to earn a silver medal.

Senior Robby Nierman ran four minutes and 4.58 seconds in the 1600-meter qualifier and four minutes and 15.96 seconds in the finals to finish second in the Big Ten.

Nierman and sophomore Sarah Maxwell represented IU on the medal stand Saturday, the second day of competition at the SPIRE institute in Geneva, Ohio.

Maxwell jumped 1.77 meters, one centimeter below her season-best, to finish as runner-up in the women’s high jump.

Freshman Tre’tez Kinnaird set a new school record when he won 600 meter prelims. He finished in one minute and 17.42 seconds, and rallied for a fourth-place in the finals in which he ran one minute and 17.45 seconds.

Kinnaird will join the distance medley relay of Jordan Gornall, Derrick Morgan and Rorey Hunter at Nationals in two weeks.

They will compete alongside Kyla Buckley as the only athletes to represent IU at the NCAA Indoor Championships this year in Albuquerque, N.M.

For the rest of the team, the Big Ten Championships are the end of the 2013-14 indoor season.

The men and women finished ninth and 10th respectively in the conference standings.
“I don’t want people to leave here thinking that we can’t compete in this conference, and do so at a high level,” Helmer said. “We look forward to the future with hope, know that we have a job to do and that we’re growing into the athletes we need to be.”