2023-2024 Men's XC and T&F

[1972Shocker]

Is there any hope at all for a 3peat 1972Shocker? Do we have some hidden pieces to score here and there and is the race for 1st supposed to be close anyway?

I haven't analyzed that closely for this meet and probably won't. It takes quite a bit of time and effort so I will just leave it to goShockers.com above to provide the anaylysis. As you can see from above the Shocks are missing quite a few pieces from last year. I do not think we have the hidden pieces that can put us in contention this year. The Shocks will do very well I think if they achieve their goal of a 3rd place finish and that is certainly not assured.

I just plan on following the action, hope for the best, and enjoy seeing as much Shocker success and promise as possible.

[shoxlax]

Why do we have so many more decathlon entries than other schools?

[1972Shocker]

AAC Championships - Friday Results

10000m Run: So. Zander Cobb was the top finisher for the Shocks finishing out of the scoring in 10th wtih a time of 31:41.12. His time, as the case with the entire filed, was about 2 minutes slower than his season best time. Warm and humid conditions seem to account for the slower pace. I'm guessing the Shocks were hoping for at least a couple of points from Zander in this race.

Hammer Throw: The Shocks probably outperformed expectations in this event with Creighton Camp finishing 4th with a PB of 190-11 to finish 4th and Beau Kerschen finishing 5th with a PB of 183-0 as they combined for 9 points. Good effort from the 2 Andale boys.

Javelin Throw: The Shocks picked up 10 points in this event as So. Blake McCormick finished 4th with a season best throw of 188-9, Fr. Jordan Rider finished 5th with a throw of 188-4 and So. Luke Porter finished 8th with a season best throw of 177-9. That would seem to bode well for the future.

1500m Run Prelims - Top 12 Advance: It took a new personal best but Jr. Adam Rzentkowski ran a 3:52.84 go qualify 11th. He will probably have to run another personal best in the finals to finish in the top 8 scoring positions.

400m Hurdle Prelims - Top 8 Advance: Fr. Jason Parrish qualified 4th with a new personal best time of 51.53 and So. Brian Haney qualified 6th with a time of 52.02. Both are guaranteed points as long as they finish the rece in the finals.

[1972Shocker]

AAC Championships - Decathlon - Day 1

10 athletes entered in the Decathlon. 5 from Wichita State led by Adria Navajon and Hudson Bailey, 2 from Rice and 1 each from Charlotte, East Carolina and North Texas. Looks like the top challengers to win would be Navajon for the Shocks, Vincent Arousell of Rice and Starrett Vesper of East Carolina. However, this is the first decathlon for 5 of these guys this year including Adria Navajon of the Shockers.

100m Dash: Good start for Jr. Adria Navajon with a nice PB of 10.61 in the 100m dash scoring 949 points putting him up by 82 points over Rice's Vincent Arousell. Long, long way to go though.

Long Jump: Adria sets a second consecutive PB winning the long jump with a leap of 24-7.25 good for 935 points. Rice's Arousell finished 2nd with a jump of 23-3.5 scoring 838 points. Adria has extended his lead over Arousell to 179 points. These are strong events for Adria so good that he is building a little cushion.

Shot Put: Adria's weakest events are the throws (shot, discus, javelin). Arousell has a significant advantage in the shot put. His PB is about 5' ahead of Adria's best. So expect the lead to shrink. The shot put went worse than expected. Adria's put of 35-5.25 was close to his PB scoring 534 points but Arousell set an new PB of 44-5.25 for 700 points cutting Adria's lead to a mere 13 points.

High Jump: Adrian and Arousell have very similar PB's in the high jump. We'll see if this holds true today. Arousell cleared 6-4.25 for 749 points and Adria cleared 6-3.25 for 723 points. Both guys have more in them. However, I am concerned that Adria may have sustained an injury to his ankle/achilles/foot. In any case, Arousell takes a 13 point lead heading into the final event of the day.

400m Dash: Arousell win the event in 49.53 which is a new PB for him scoring 836 points. Adria finished 4th in 51.78 but that was about 2 seconds slower than his personal best scoring 734 points as Arousell extends his lead at the end of Day 1. Navajon didn't look too distressed in the 400 but possible the wind bothered him. Hard to say.

Final 5 events tomorrow: 110m hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin and 1500m.

[shoxlax]

First and Third in the decathlon!

[shoxlax]

72’, I forgot: is Montgomery hurt? Never mind I looked at one of your earlier post.

[1972Shocker]

Grandson's high school gradutation has taken up most of my day so I have not been able to follow the results today.

Jr. Adria Navajon won his 2nd AAC Decathlon championship with a new personal best of 7,213 points to go along with his 3 AAC Indoor Heptathlon championships. He probably would have on another Decathlon title last year if it had not been for injuries. That moves him into 8th place on the All-Time Shocker Top 10 in the Decathlon edging ahead of his teammate Tanner Brown. Adria finished 172 point ahead of Rice's Vincent Arousell.

Jr. Hudson Bailey collected 3rd place with 6,844 points and earned All-Conference honors as he joints Adria on the podium.

So. Luke Porter set a new personal best with 6,415 point which 6th place and in perhaps a little bit of a surprise Grad Student Tanner Brown finished 7th with 6,352 points.

All-in-all the Shocks garnered 21 points with a hell of lot of effort from these 4 guys.

I word about Tanner Brown. Tanner's personal best in the decathlon is 7,178 points that he set in March of 2022. After suffering a major knee injury in the decathlon high jump at the 2022 AAC Outdoor Championships, Tanner Brown redshirted and rehabbed throughout the 2023 season. He made his return for his seventh and final season of collegiate track this indoor season but went out again with another injury. His only action since his major knee injury was one indoor 60m dash in January and in the shot put and discus at an outdoor meet on May 3rd. He made his return to the decathlon in this year's AAC Championship for the final time to get back on the track one last time and score points for the Shockers and, by gosh he did picking up 2 points with his 7th place finish. To me this is tremendously inspirational and and impressive show of resilience and perseverence. I am not sure what Tanner's educational path has been but if you are an employer who has a chance to hire this young man you better grab him.

How did it happen.

AAC Decathlon - Day 2

110m Hurdles: Hudson Bailey and Adrai Navajon went 1-2 in 14.59 and 14.61, respectively, and pretty much demolishing the field who had times ranging from 15.99 to 17.05. Importantly, Rice's Vincent Arousell finishe 5th with a clocking of 16.32 seconds which resulted in both Hudson and Bailey pick up 200 points on Arousell, the Decathlon leader at the end of day 1 with Adrai moving back into the lead by 865 point over Arousell. About as good a start for day 2 as the Shocks could ask for.

Discus Throw: Starrett Vesper of ECU picked up a solid win to help move him up in the standings. Arousell flung the disc 116-05 for 574 points vs 110-03 and 536 points for Adria cutting Adria's lead to 49 points. Not really a bad result for Adria as was his weakest Day 2 event.

Pole Vault: ECU's Vesper got another solid win cleaing 15-9 for 849 points as he continued to move up.into 4th place overall after sitting in 9th after the 110m hurdles. Adria was 2nd in the pole vault at 14-5.25 for 731 points while Arousell was 5th at 13-5.25 scoring 645 points stretching Adria;s lead to 135 points with 2 events left.

Javelin Throw: Arousell and Adria finished 8th and 9th in the javelin with Arousell only cutting 2 points off the lead heading into the 1500m run.

1500m Run: Shocker Luke Porter won the event with a time of 4:39.87. Adria apparently latched on to Luke and drafted him across the finish line in 2nd place at 4:40.16 wih Arousell finishing 3rd in 4:46.78 with Adria securing his 2nd AAC Decathlon Championship.

Congratulations to Adria and his teammates.

Rice's Vincent Arousell is only a freshman so his day will be coming. Rice has a pretty impressive group of track and field athletes.

[shoxlax]

Josh Parrish finished 3rd in the Long Jump, however he was only 3” behind the leader.

[ShockTalk]

Josh Parrish finished 3rd in the Long Jump, however he was only 3” behind the leader.

Missed-It-By-That-Much.jpg

[1972Shocker]

Saturday Track Events

110m Hurdles Prelims - 8 Advance to Finals: Fr. Josh Parrish at 14.09 and Sr. Joseph Holthusen at 14.23 advance.

800m Run Prelims - 8 Advance to Finals: So. Riley Vandaveer adances with a personal best time of 1:52.53.

Saturday Field Events

Long Jump: Fr. Josh Parish finished 3rd with a very solid 24-11 to pick up his first of what will probably be many AAC All-Conference honors.

[shoxlax]

Palen goes 7-2.25 to win high jump

[1972Shocker]

Sunday Field Events

High Jump: Shocker Sr. Brady Palen adds an AAC outdoor high jump championship to along with his indoor championship he won this past February. Brady made it kind of inteeresing. With 4 guys remaining in the competition having cleared 6-11 the bar was set at 7-.05. USF's Kendal Mosley cleared that on his first attempt. Brady, Rice's Ese Amata and North Texas Freshman Ricardo Leyva all missed their first 2 attempts at this heigtht. Brady cleared on his 2rd attemp but Amata and Leyva both missed and it came down to

Brady vs USF's Mosely with the bar set at 7-2.25. Brady cleared the bar on his first attempt putting the pressure on Mosely who missed all 3 of his attempts to clinch the gold medal for Brady. The bar was then raised to 7-3.75 but Brady was unable to clear that height. Congrats to the kid from Beloit.

Triple Jump: Fr. Josh Parrish picked up a point with an 9th place hop, skip and jump of 47-4.5.

Sunday Track Events

4x100 Relay: Joseph Holthusen, Josh Parrish, Jason Parrish and Bryan Haney recorded a season best time of 40.92 seconds to finish 4th and add 5 points to the Shocker kitty.

1500m Run Finals: Jr. Adam Rzentkowksi ran a season best 3;51.64 but that was only good for 10th place in the 12-man final and out of the scoring

110m Hurdle Finals: Fr. Josh Parrish 2nd with new PB of 13.82 and Sr. Joseph Holthusen finished 4th in 13.91 to score 13 points for the Shocks.

400m Hurdle Finals: Fr. Jason Parrish finished 4th in 51.21 seconds and So, Bryan Haney was close behind at 51.50 to finish 5th as they collect 9 total team points. Both young Shocker hurdlers set new personal bests. Jason and Bryan move up a couple of spots on the Shocker All-Time Top 10 list to 6th and 8th respectively.

4x400m Relay: The Shocks close out the meet with a 5th place finish from Jason Parrish, Bryan Haney, JD Prinsloo and RJ Hutchison who put up a season best time of 3:14.39.

[1972Shocker]

Men’s Scores
1. South Florida 217
2. Charlotte 143
3. Rice 105
4. Wichita State 90
5. UTSA 81
6. Memphis 52
7. Tulsa 35
8. North Texas 34
9. East Carolina 28
10. Tulane 27

USF literally sprinted away with the title. They scored 125 total points in the 100m, 110mH, 200m, 400m and 400mH sprints.

Thought the Shocks had a solid effort and performance and finished pretty much as expexcted.

[shoxlax]

Crazy to think Palen is only the third best college high jumper this year produced by the state of Kansas. Also, two 7’ jumpers in HS this year.

[1972Shocker]

Crazy to think Palen is only the third best college high jumper this year produced by the state of Kansas. Also, two 7’ jumpers this in HS this year.

Speaking of crazy. That's what everybody thought about Dick Fosbury when he first unveiled the Fosbury Flop.