2022-23 Shocker Men XC and Track & Field

[shoxlax]

Holthusen runs a 14.01 PR 110 hurdles and finishes 4th. Heck of an effort in a tremendous field.

[1972Shocker]

The Shocker men have just kept grinding away and in 5,000m run, the next to last event, somewhat unexpecedly finished 4th (ADL), 6th (Clayton D) and 7th (Ben Flowers) which was good for 10 points.

Overall, the Shockers lead Houston 148-142 with only the 4x400 remaining. Could the Shockers do it again this year. Houston will be the favorite to win this race. Assume they will. The Shockers would then need to finish 4th or better. A 4th place finish would give the Shockers a 153-152 win over Houston.

Great stuff.

[1972Shocker]

Wow! That was fun as hell and totally unexpected. Great fun to see true student-athletes put their hearts and soul into a team effort and get rewarded for it even though not very many Shocker fans follow them.

Wichita State 154 - Houston 152

[shoxlax]

Go to a Shocker track meet if you haven’t already. Money well spent supporting a fantastic group of student athletes.

[WstateU]

[WstateU]

[1972Shocker]

Shocker Men Defend AAC Outdoor Title

https://goshockers.com/news/2023/5/14/track-and-field-shocker-men-defend-aac-outdoor-title-women-outperform-projections.aspx

"This is a massive validation for our team," head coach Steve Rainbolt said. "I am so proud of these guys. Every guy mattered, exactly like a year ago. It took all sorts of terrific efforts on the part of our athletes."

The Shocker men overcame a projected 38-point deficit to Houston on the final day of competition to claim their second-straight AAC Outdoor Championship team title with 154 points, beating the Cougars by just two points.

"That was the most amazing championship that I've ever been involved with," Rainbolt said. "I love it when it comes down to the 4x400, I love it when it's two points, and I love it when everybody matters."

"[I love that] we did it with balance and depth, that we had athletes in every event area contributing," Rainbolt said. "That's team track and field, and I love that."

[shoxlax]

Track is such the purest form of competition. Very little referee involvement. Just you and the opponent.

[SubGod22]

Not to derail things, but I was curious at what would be coming in next year for competition. Looks like Charlotte is the top dog coming in as they won CUSA by over 50 points with 179.5.

It appears that FAU and UAB don't have men's T&F.

CUSA 2023 Championship Results

[1972Shocker]

‘A tearjerker:’ Wichita State track and field stuns Houston again at AAC Championships BY TAYLOR ELDRIDGE

Read more at: https://www.kansas.com/sports/colleg...#storylink=cpy

Last year, WSU was the underdog to Houston but believed its depth gave the team a puncher’s chance. This year, WSU entered as nearly 70-point underdogs to Houston and was projected behind Cincinnati, too. The Shockers were projected to be 38 points short of the national powerhouse program at the start of Sunday.

An eternal optimist, not even Wichita State track and field coach Steve Rainbolt could find hope entering the final day of the American Athletic Conference Outdoor Championships.

No matter how many scenarios ran through Rainbolt’s head before competition started back up in Tampa, none of them ended with WSU hoisting another trophy. “I want to be a believer every step of the way, but we were 38-point underdogs this morning,” Rainbolt said. “How on earth are we going to make up 38 points? It just seemed out of reach, it really did.”

Once again, the stunning victory came down to the 1600-meter relay team. With Houston as the heavy favorite in the event, WSU’s quartet of Joakim Genereux, Trace Spires, R.J. Hutchison and J.D. Prinsloo needed to hold their seed of fourth place to clinch the team championship. But the relay team didn’t settle for fourth — they ran a season-best time of 3 minutes, 10.46 seconds (the ninth-fastest time in program history) to take third and give the Shockers the title in style.

It was emotional. It was a tearjerker. It was difficult to contain my emotion,” Rainbolt said.

A total of 22 different individuals helped the Shockers score 154 points, two more than Houston and 14 more than Cincinnati. Perhaps even more impressive, WSU won the team title without a single individual champion, while Houston had six stand on top of the podium.

No one was more valuable to WSU’s title-winning upset than senior Yuben Goncalves, who delivered an effort for the history books — even if it didn’t result in a single gold — this past weekend. After not jumping at all during the regular season, Goncalves made his season debut in the horizontal jumps and came away with a pair of silver medals in the long jump (24 feet, 3½ inches) and triple jump (50 feet, 0½ inches). The Portugal native scored a team-high 22 points for WSU, tacking on a third-place finish in the 400 hurdles with a time of 51.25.

The biggest swing of the meet for WSU happened in the 5,000 race with the Shockers trailing Houston, 142-138 and no points projected in the second-to-last event of the meet. Another stellar run from sophomore Adrian Diaz-Lopez, who took second in the 10,000 race, helped swing the team race in WSU’s favor, as the Spain native finished fourth in 14:14.80, followed by senior Clayton Duchatschek (sixth, 14:23.43) and senior Ben Flowers (seventh, 14:26.48). The unexpected 10-point performance gave WSU the cushion it needed to survive Houston’s victory in the 1600 relay.

“This is maybe the most surprising championship that we’ve ever won,” Rainbolt said. “I’m embarrassed to say that because I always try to be an optimist. I’m so proud of our athletes because they never lost faith. They were always believing we could win this thing.

In typical fashion, WSU’s point-scorers were littered with Kansas high school recruits in Palen (Beloit St. Johns-Tipton), Holthusen (Bishop Carroll), Camp (Andale), McCormick (Maize South), Porter (Kapaun Mt. Carmel), Lewis (Wheatland-Grinnell), Penner (Berean Academy), Everett (Winfield), Merriman (Maize South), Montgomery (Wichita West) and Caster (Douglass).

---

Not mentioned by Taylor in his article is that the Shockers best all-around athlete, Adria Navajon, the defending AAC decathlon Champion, had to battle injuries and managed to tough out a 3rd place finish in the decathlon for 6 points. I think Adria was also entered in 3 or 4 open events but was forced to withdraw due to his injuries. However, Nate Vann, a senior from Tulsa via Cowley County CC, stepped up with a big PB to finish 2nd.

Also the Shockers scored 25 points in the javelin last year and the 4 guys who accounted for those points graduated. This year a freshman from Maize South, Blake McCormick, a multi-event freshman from Kapaun-Mt. Carmel, Luke Porter, were able to chip in 9 points to help offset that.

[WuDrWu]

Bolt is one of the really good guys around and so is John Wise. DOO is pretty damned good guy too! Really happy for these guys.

[SubGod22]

The team is enjoying their Championship week performances

[WstateU]

The team is enjoying their Championship week performances

Awesome!

[1972Shocker]

AAC Championship Recap (includes regular season championship in sports where that applies)::
Men's Track & Field - 2
Softball - 2
Women's Cross Country - 1
Volleyball - 1
Men's Basketball -1

Total = 7

[1972Shocker]

Not to derail things, but I was curious at what would be coming in next year for competition. Looks like Charlotte is the top dog coming in as they won CUSA by over 50 points with 179.5.

It appears that FAU and UAB don't have men's T&F.

CUSA 2023 Championship Results

Surprised that UCF does not sponsor men's track and field. I would think they would be quite strong. The UCF women certainly are. Temple and SMU also do not sponsor men's track and field. Most likely a casualty of Title IX.

So the AAC is losing 2 teams, Houston and Cincinnati, who both have very good men's track and field programs and picking up 4 teams (Charlotte, Rice, UNT and UTSA) that do have men's track and field programs. How good they will be remains to be seen. That will expand the number of schools participating in men's track & field from 8 to 10.

On the women's side the AAC is losing 3 of its strongest programs while all 6 of the new AAC schools sponsoring women's track and field with Charlotte also winning the 2023 women's outdooor championship.

Comparing the top marks in each event for Charlotte to the top spots in each event for the Shocks indicates that Charlotte will be quite formidable on both the men's and women's sides. Looks like they will more than hold their own. UTSA was right behind then on the women's side.

I guess will find out for sure next year.