Sophomore Josh Honeycutt triple jumps Saturday afternoon at the Euler State Farm ESU Relays. Honeycutt finished the meet with a jump of 16.39 meters, breaking the previous ESU record and earning the rank of 14th longest triple jump in the world. /PHOTO BY KELLEN JENKINS

Seven athletes on the Emporia State men’s and women’s track teams qualified for nationals in individual championships at the Euler State Farm ESU Relays last Saturday.

Josh Honeycutt, National Champion from the indoor season, beat his own school record in the triple jump and now holds the 14th best mark in the world. He earned two of ESU’s seven event championships.

Honeycutt jumped 16.39 meters on his last triple jump. Junior Alex Pyle went 2.05 meters to win the high jump and freshman Vincent Howze ran 53.29 to win the 400m hurdles.

For the women, Brooke Kent swept the long jump event, jumping 5.43 meters to beat out teammate Brooke Kent. Freshman Katie Mona won the 1500 meter and finished second in the 800 meter. Kent also finished second in the 100 meter and long jump.

Honeycutt was not expecting to jump that mark due so early in the season.

“It is always good to break a school record,” Honeycutt said. “But we are still in training mode and we are not trying to peak yet.”

According to Honeycutt, the type of training is a factor when trying to peak in the season.

“People are still lifting three times a week,” Honeycutt said. “When we get to where we are trying to peak it is only two times a week we are having harder work outs.”

Although track is a sport where individual performance is important, Honeycutt said his team’s overall performance is more important to him than the individual based national competition.

“I care about nationals but I would rather have a team conference title and I know we are very capable of doing that,” Honeycutt said. “(In the indoor season) we got second place by only 11 points with two major people injured.”

Freshman Derwin Hall also set a personal record to place second in the men’s 100 Meter Dash.

“It set a good goal for me,” Hall said. “I ran 10.54 and that was the fastest I have ever run. It takes 10.65 to go to nationals but the wind was a little illegal today so hopefully I can make it to national and help out the team.”

According to Hall, achieving a personal record on the day of competition is difficult.

“You go into the week training your hardest and do what the coach wants you to do and you come out here just hoping for the best,” Hall said. “But sometimes you get your personal record and sometimes you do not. That is just the way track is.”

According to Kent, the women’s team is also making progress.

“We got a couple girls who are getting personal records already in long jump and hurdles,” Kent said. “We have a couple girls out now that are really going to make a difference for conference.”

Although the outdoor season has just started, Kent said she feels her teammates are pulling their own weight.

“I think everybody is doing their part and getting ready for the conference meet,” Kent said. “We have got to start eating right and doing things as a team rather than as individuals.”

Hall said the team needs to focus their goals to fuel themselves for a conference championship.

“We just keep it on our mind that we are trying to make history at Emporia State and we need to just keep training hard and do all the techniques the coaches have us do.”

The Hornets will host the next meet this Thursday and Friday at the Papa John’s D-II Challenge at Witten Track in Welch Stadium.

Doug Irby/The Bulletin

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