2022-23 Shocker Men XC and Track & Field

[1972Shocker]

Ole Ross and I attended the “U” with this Gerald; he could long-jump with the best…

While that jump is about 1.5 feet short of making the WSU all-time top 10 it is, 89-years later, a better jump than any current Shocker has put up this year and would rank him at #7 on the AAC outdoor performance chart for this spring.

Current Shocker senior, Nate Vann just set a new PR this past Friday with a jump of 23-3.5 for the best jump by a Shocker so far this year.

The Shockers' all-time top 10 marks run from 10th place at 24-11.75 by Veryl Crawford in 1975 to the the best all-time jump of 26-2.5 set by David Duvall in 1980.

[WuDrWu]

For anyone watching, I'm curious your thoughts on the promotional commercials for each University.

So far I've seen Temple, South Florida, Cincinnati, Wichita State, Tulane.


Do you like any of them? Dislike? Reasons?

[1972Shocker]

Shockers Aim High at AAC Outdoor Championships

https://goshockers.com/news/2023/5/1...pionships.aspx

Wichita State looks to defend its outdoor title after ending Houston's five-year winning streak a year ago in Wichita.

Wichita State and Houston have been the top two teams in the last three outdoor championships, but the Cincinnati men are not to be counted out after claiming the AAC Indoor Championship title earlier this year.

Projections show Wichita State finishing third behind Houston and Cincinnati as they did prior to the 2022 championship.

The Shockers' versatility helped win in 2022 with athletes scoring in 19 of the 21 events, while Houston scored in 13 events.

The Shockers have claimed back-to-back 3,000-meter steeplechase titles with Ethan Kossover winning in 2021 and Clayton Duchatschek winning in 2022.

Wichita State has won every javelin title since joining the conference in 2018.

NO. 1 SEEDS
Three Shockers hold top seed marks entering the conference meet.

Matty Everett, the reigning AAC discus champion, maintains the top spot in the event by over a meter with a throw of 57.38m/188'3".

CDuchatschek looks to repeat as the AAC steeplechase champion and enters with the fastest seed time (8:45.98), as the conference leader, Christian Baker of Tulsa, will not contest the steeplechase, running the 1500 meters and 5,000 meters instead.

Yuben Goncalves leads the conference in the 400-meter hurdles with his personal-best time of 51.11 from the Shocker Open.

IN THE HUNT
All-American Brady Palen and Weston Lewis are seed No. 2 and 3, respectively, in the high jump behind South Florida's Romaine Beckford, who leads the NCAA (DI) in the event. Palen's season-best of 2.19m/7'2.25" ranks him ninth in the NCAA (DI) with the Shocker high jump squad rankings 13^th.

Just missing the hammer final a year ago, Creighton Camp enters this championship meet as the No. 2 seed (55.81m/183'1"), having already thrown over 6 meters farther than his personal best prior to this season.

Blake McCormick quickly worked his way up to second in the conference during his freshman campaign with a throw of 60.49m/198'5" and will compete for a spot on the podium.

In his first season as a Shocker, Iestyn Williams raced to the fourth-fastest 800-meter time (1:51.34) in the conference and is scheduled to run as the No. 4 seed.

NOT SO SECRET WEAPONS
Goncalves will make his horizontal jumps outdoor season debut at the conference meet for the second-straight year. Last outdoor season, Goncalves opened up in the jumps at conference after only hurdling and running relays throughout the season and leapt to All-Conference honors in the triple jump and a fourth-place finish in the long jump. His triple jump mark qualified him to the NCAA West Preliminaries and would be conference-leading mark this season. His long jump mark from a year ago would rank him second in the current conference standings.

Adria Navajon is set to compete in his first decathlon of the season after repeating as the AAC indoor heptathlon champion and winning the decathlon outdoor a year ago. His point total from last year's conference meet would slide him into first in the conference rankings. As it stands, Cincinnati's Dominique Hall holds the top seed with Nate Vann, Hudson Bailey and Kolby Caster in the next three spots. Navajon is also seeded eighth in the 110-meter hurdles, 11^th in the long jump, and will make his season debut in the high jump.

[1972Shocker]

Just missing the hammer final a year ago, Creighton Camp enters this championship meet as the No. 2 seed (55.81m/183'1"), having already thrown over 6 meters farther than his personal best prior to this season.

Creighton, a junior from Andale, performed to his seed as he finished 2nd with a new PB of 56.55/185-6.

[WuDrWu]

Just missing the hammer final a year ago, Creighton Camp enters this championship meet as the No. 2 seed (55.81m/183'1"), having already thrown over 6 meters farther than his personal best prior to this season.

Creighton, a junior from Andale, performed to his seed as he finished 2nd with a new PB of 56.55,/185-6.

Have to be excited about any PB but even in the hammer, 2 feet 5 inches says a lot and also plenty of room to expand.

[1972Shocker]

Adria Navajon and Hudson Bailey have both set nice new outdoor PB's in the decathlon high jump as both have cleared 6-6. Both have higher marks indoors. They are still jumping. Adria misses at 6-7 but Hudson has cleared that and also cleared 6-8.25 on his 3rd attempt. Hudson having a day in the high jump pit. Clears 6-9.5 on his 2nd attempt. Unable to go higher but that is new PB indoors or outdoors for Hudson and will be worth 868 points.

Nate Vann is off to a good start in the decathlon but he only managed to clear 6-1.25 in the high jump which is about 3 inches shy of his PB..

[1972Shocker]

Have to be excited about any PB but even in the hammer, 2 feet 5 inches says a lot and also plenty of room to expand.

Creighton threw 162-0 a year ago in the AAC Championships. So he has made a major improvement. Perhaps inspired by Michael Bryan.

[shoxlax]

I threw a hammer 160’ once. It was when I was aiming for a nail and hit my finger instead.

[shoxlax]

Maybe we put our NIL money into track. There is a junior at Andover Central that cleared 17-3 last week in the pole vault. The fastest eighth grader in the nation is a girl from Rock Creek. Two other Kansas males are ranked in the Top 20 in both the Javelin and Long Jump.

[1972Shocker]

Adria Navajon is set to compete in his first decathlon of the season after repeating as the AAC indoor heptathlon champion and winning the decathlon outdoor a year ago. His point total from last year's conference meet would slide him into first in the conference rankings. As it stands, Cincinnati's Dominique Hall holds the top seed with Nate Vann, Hudson Bailey and Kolby Caster in the next three spots.

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Day 1 of the heptathlon is in the books and its pretty hotly contested.

Bearcat sophomore Dominique Hall sits in 1st with 3,944 points after a strong 400m dash, the final event of the day (3351)
Shocker senior Nate Vann is at 3,870 (-74) and may be on his way to a new PB to close out his Shocker career 3392)
Shocker sophomore Adria Navajon is at 3,829 (-115) hoping to defend his title (3573)
Shocker sophomore Hudson Bailey is at 3,793 (-151) and perhaps also on his way to a new PB (3269)

Shocker freshman Luke Porter is in 7th and and junior Kolby Caster is in a tie for 8th.

So the Shocks are well positioned to make this a big event for them.

Hall appears to me to be strong in the speed events.

Today's events included the 100, LJ, SP, HJ and 400.

Tomorrow's events include the 110H, DT, PV, JT and 1500. A tougher group of events in my opinion that the Day 1 events.

Based on past performances in the Day 2 events it will come down to who can perform consistently closest to their best efforts and probably will come down to the always tough 1500.

I give a slight edge to Navajon over Hall with Vann solidly in the 3rd spot.

I'm going say Navajon at 7,375, Hall at 7,300 and Vann at 7,200.

I don't think Bailey can hang with the top 3 but I think he has a good shot at breaking the 7,000 point mark which would be a new PB.

[1972Shocker]

Blake McCormick quickly worked his way up to second in the conference during his freshman campaign with a throw of 60.49m/198'5" and will compete for a spot on the podium.

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Blake, a freshman out of Maize South, did not have his best day. In fact, he was sitting in 7th place after 3 throws at 170-8 just making the cut for the 3 final attempts. He moved up to 6th place with a throw of 175-2 on his 4th attempt and then hit is best throw of the day on his 6th and final attempt at 185-0 to move up to 4th, just missing a spot on the podium. Fellow freshman Luke Porter set a new PR at 181-7 and finished 5th. Hudson Bailey finished 9th just missing out on the 8th place point.

While the two freshman did pick up 9 points for the Shocks I think they were hoping for 12-15 points in this event.

[1972Shocker]

Bryce Merriman is the 8th seed in the 1500. Tulsa and Cincinnati dominated this event.

Bryce Merriman finished with the 4th fastest time in today's prelims to advance to the 12 runner final although the times ran were relatively pedestrian for a lot of these guys.

[1972Shocker]

Yuben Goncalves leads the conference in the 400-meter hurdles with his personal-best time of 51.11 from the Shocker Open.

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Yuben at 52.38 and teammates Toby Penner at 52.57 and freshman Bryan Haney at 52.66 all qualified for the 8-man final in the 400 hurdles. Haney's time as a new PB.

Houston also qualified 3 for the finals with USF and Cincinnati filling the other 2 spots.

[1972Shocker]

The only Shocker in the Top 10 of the AAC performance charts coming into the AAC Championship was junior Jackson Caldwell who was seeded 10th. Tulsa runners had 6 of the top 8 times in the AAC this year.

The Shockers best 10k runner, sophomore Adrian Diaz-Lopez, who apparently was dealing with an injury this spring and who came back just a couple of weeks ago at the Rock Chalk Invitational where he ran a relatively pedestrian time (for him) in the 5k race in very windy conditions. So today's 10k was his first of the season.

Similarly to ADL, senior Ben Flowers had not run much this spring, running in only two 5k races in April.

Looks like these are the guys who should have been listed in the Not So Secret Weapons section of the pre-championship review on goshockers.com.

Both the men's and the women's 10k races were scheduled to be run Friday evening but, due to lighting in the area, were rescheduled to Satruday morning. The women's race was run at a pretty slow pace in what looked to be warm and very humid conditions.

The weather conditions also seemed to impact the men's race. Cincinnati's Milo Greder won the race with a time 31:32.91. His best time this year was 29:04.04 as the 3rd seed in this race.

The big news though was that Greder just barely edged out ADL who finish second with a time of 31:33.24 while Jackson Caldwell finished 5th in 31:42.60 and Ben Flowers finished 6th in 31:42.81 as the Shocks racked up 15 points in this event vs 13 for long distance powerhouse Tulsa and 10 for Cincinnati.

[WuDrWu]

Really good race. I was convinced ADL had made the winning move between 400-200M to go and coming out of the last turn thought we had the champion but Greder had just a tiny bit more in the last 30 meters or so to get by ADL. That result has to tighten up the expected team results, doesn't it?