With 150 meters to go in the 500 meter dash Roach started to gain some ground on the field. He hawked down the entire pack with 20 meters left to go in the race as he crossed the line in first place.
Roach’s winning time of 1:02.88 broke the previous meet record for the Hoosier Open — set last year by Kuhn — by more than half a second. Kuhn finished second after leading most of the race with a time of 1:03.20 which was also better than his meet record that was set last year.
“I didn’t expect to win but coach told me to get my mindset together to believe I can win,” Roach said. “I just followed my coach’s training and did what he told me.”
With that time Roach sits at No. 1 in the nation on the young season in the 500 meter dash. Roach admitted that the accomplishment was surprising and never really thought he would be in this situation so early in his collegiate career.
IU Coach Ron Helmer talked earlier in the week how he was intrigued to see how his large freshman class would respond and to see how the upperclassmen would lead them.
“Cornelius went out and did what seniors are supposed to do,” Helmer said. “Daniel Kuhn in the 500 was right behind Markevious. He did a great job of patting him on the back telling him nice job you just beat me, I respect it.”
On the women’s side, junior middle distance runner Madison Stenger finished third in the 1,000-meter run behind two unattached runners with a time of 2:49.71 second best in school history. The Hoosiers distance team was the bright spot on the women’s side with redshirt sophomore Corrine Cominator winning the mile with three Hoosiers trailing right behind her.
“I think we did really well and I think the freshman surprised a lot of people which is cool cause it’s always really fun to have people to race against and push you to be better,” Stenger said.
Redshirt sophomore Jordan Huntoon burned the field in the final 200 meters in the men’s 1,000-meter run to win the race with a time of 2:27.52. Freshman Willie Morrison also got high praise from Helmer on his performance in the shot put where he placed second with a toss of 17.76 meters.
In the men’s 5,000-meter run, athletes from various schools outside the full squads of Purdue, Tennessee, Kentucky and IU partook in the race. Northern Arizona’s Futsum Zienasellassie thought he had the race won with marginable lead on the rest of the field until Portland’s William Kincaid kicked it in the final lap to chase down Zienasellassie with 20 meters left to win the race stunning the crowd.
“We had some places where I felt like we got exactly what we were hoping to get competitive spirit and other places where we didn’t and that’s kind of what you expect in a December meet,” Helmer said. “We want to have a good meet, and it’s everybody’s job to get ready and a number of people did just that.”
