Samuel Paydock
Black & Magenta Staff Writer
The Fighting Muskies started their indoor track and field season at the Jessica Starks Quad Meet at Capital University on Jan. 31.
The Muskingum men’s team place third out of the four team field scoring 157 points while Heidelberg won with 176 points. The women’s team placed third as well scoring 103 points with Heidelberg taking first with 141 points.
“I thought, overall, it was good, I saw a lot of good efforts… if I had two [event groups] that stood out it would be the sprints and jumps they really met the expectations that we had set for them,” said Jacob Gleason, Director of Track & Field Operations.
With first meet in the books, Gleason commented on how the team would continue to improve moving forward into the next meet at Marietta.
“Just growth in general is important right now with how crazy things have been… we’ve knocked off the rust, now I would expect to see some fine tuning start to happen, hopefully an opportunity to win again we were really close on the men’s side we weren’t able to accomplish it… hopefully, we’ll be able to go get a win this weekend,” said Gleason.
Gleason was asked to comment on performances of Hasson Williams in the 60-meter hurdles and Wade Speeth’s 800-meter performance.
“I thought Hasson ran really well in the hurdles… hurdles are tough right now since we aren’t able to do a lot of technical work so all those hurdlers look a little rusty but he appeared a little more polished so that was awesome. Wade, I think he ran a nice 800 meters that was a good start for him and I hope he can build from that,” he said.
Other performances for the meet included Macy McAdams breaking her own record in the 3000-meter run, Jakai Smith taking first in the triple jump ranking him first in the Ohio Athletic Conference, and Jaden Swiderek taking a close second in the 60-meter dash. Mary Double placed top three in each of her four events being a runner up in three, Hasson Williams took first in the 60-meter hurdles, and long jumpers Jaden Swiderek, T.J. Davis, and Tyrel James swept the long jump event.