IU’s DMR placed third nationally in the 2014 NCAA Indoor Championships, landed the fifth-best time in NCAA history and the best time in IU history. With three of the same runners in the relay this year, the Hoosiers look to not only improve their time, but to compete for a national title once again in the coming weeks.
“We have so much more experience now than we did last year,” senior Derrick Morgan said, who will run the second leg of the relay. “Last year we were just hoping to get to nationals, but now we really want to compete and ?even win.”
The relay’s performance in the Alex Wilson Invitational will provide the only opportunity for it to qualify for the NCAA Indoor Championships. In the same meet last year, six of the 12 qualifying teams set their marks, ?including IU.
The DMR is comprised four runners who run 1200, 400, 800 and 1600 meters in that order.
The running order for the Hoosiers on Saturday will be Morgan, sophomore Tre’tez Kinnaird, freshman Daniel Kuhn and senior Rorey ?Hunter.
Each of the four athletes have ran personal records this indoor season. To win a national title in the DMR, they’ll likely have to run another, as they compete with teams such as Georgetown and Oregon, the nation’s best-seeded team, for the best relay.
This will be the first time these four runners will compete together this season.
“Tre’tez is running the 1200 for the first time, and Rorey and Derrick are probably better than they were at this point last season,” IU coach Ron Helmer said. “It’s a collective sum of four parts though, and it’s going to take a pretty good effort to improve what we did last year.”
This is not new territory for IU, as the men’s DMR has qualified nationally seven consecutive years and finished top-four in the nation four consecutive years, including two runner-up efforts.
The three non-relay athletes competing for the Hoosiers at Alex Wilson are junior pole-vaulters Sophie Gutermuth, Sydney Clute and Terry Batemon. Gutermuth is looking to maintain her national qualifying mark, Clute to build off of her improvement throughout the season and Batemon to set a national-qualifying mark, as he sits 37th in the NCAA.
Batemon stands third in the Big Ten in men’s pole vault with a vault of 5.25 meters, a personal record, after being absent from outdoor competition last season due to two pulled hamstring injuries.
Batemon claimed his first victory of the season at the Meyo Invitational, his first victory since the 2014 Gladstein Invitational.
“I’ve been gaining confidence every meet, since it’s been a good year for me,” Batemon said. “That victory at Meyo wasn’t even my best jump of the year, so that was even more of a confidence booster.”
Batemon gives all of the credit to others, though, as he said IU Pole Vault Coach Jake Weisman has instilled confidence by encouraging him to trust his abilities.
“Seeing the girls vault so well makes me want to do better too,” Batemon said. “When they score for their team, it makes me want to score well for my team, the men’s side.”
Sophie Gutermuth set a school record of 4.26 meters at the Meyo Invitational. She sits at second in the Big Ten and 10th in the NCAA, while Sydney Clute recorded her best vault of the season (3.86 meters) at Hoosier Hills last weekend.
The remainder of the team continues to prepare for the Big Ten Indoor Championships, set to take place Feb. 27-28 in Geneva, Ohio.
