2021-22 Shocker Women XC and Track and Field

[1972Shocker]

In the long jump Destiny was only able to jump about 16-9, almost 3 feet short of her best jump this season. This was 27th in a field of 29.and was her first and best of 3 jumps. Her So she was either totally gassed from the pentathlon or she had aggravated her ankle injury or perhaps a little of both. I was fearful this would happen coming into the meet.

Destiny's best individual event is the high jump on Saturday where she is ranked #1 in the AAC coming into the meet. However, at this point I am thinking she may not be able to make a go of it tomorrow.

Fortunately, she is just a freshman in eligibility so hopefully she has many tomorrow's ahead of her.

[1972Shocker]

Margaux Thompson finished 7th in the pole vault.

Freshman Faith Turner qualified for the final 8 in the 60m dash.

Senior Paula Garcia who had the top time in the AAC in the 200m dash withdrew due to injury.

The apparent injury that Destiny Masters is dealing with and the injury to Paula Garcia pretty much blew up the day for the Lady Shocks.

Outside of Yazmine Wright in the mile and the 3k runs tomorrow, Amanda Kakoulias in the women's shot put, and perhaps Faith Turner in the 60m the Shocks are pretty much out of bullets and are looking at a bottom third finish.

[1972Shocker]

Destiny is competing in the high jump this morning. She has opened up by clearing 5-5.25 on her first attempt.

Destiny is unable to clear the next height of 5-7.25 and finishes in a tie for 5th.

Her clearance of 5-5.25 is 6 inches below her season best. Clearly, her leg injury was more than she could overcome. But kudos for Destiny giving it what she could and picking up a few points for her team.

[1972Shocker]

Yazmine Wright ran a PB of 4:45.45 in the mile to finish 2nd behind heavy favorite Ellie Weather. Both Weather and Wright broke the old meet record. Nice job by Yazmine.

[1972Shocker]

Shocks are currently in 11th place (last) with 19.5 points. Scoring opportunities still remain in the shot put, 3000m run and the 4x400. But in any case the Shocks have not had a successful meet overall.

Amanda Kakoulias finishes 5th in the shot put for 4 points. Edging the Shocks up to 23.5 team points to edge ahead of Temple who has 22 points.

Yazmine Wright pick up her 2nd silver medal with a 2nd place in the 3k. Moving the Shocks up another 8 points to 31.5.but still in 10th place.

[1972Shocker]

The Shocks are hosting the Shocker Spring Invitational at Cessna stadium on Friday and Saturday.

Basically, an early season structured workout to see where some of your athletes stand and what they need to work on. The teams competing include Friends, Iowa Central CC, Cowley CC and Butler CC so perhaps a bit of a recruiting tool as well. Not a whole lot going on for the Shocks in this early season event in what appears to be a rebuilding year for the Shocks.

Amanda Kakoulias won the shot put with outdoor personal best of 50-8.25 beating her previous best of 50-1.25 set last week at Emporia. Amanda sits at #2 in the outdoor shot put behind Kelsey Slawson's 52-2. Kelsey and Amanda are the only two Shocker women to pass the 50 foot mark in the shot put.

The Shocker 4x100 relay team put up the 5th best time in school history with a 45.51. Not sure which Shockers were on this foursome at this point.

Semaj McGhee moved into the Shocker Top-10 list at #3 all-time with a new personal best of 42-1.5 in the triple jump. Semaj displaced her coach Heidi (Yost) Benton (2002) at #3 all-time at Wichita State.

[1972Shocker]

As I have previously mentioned the Lady Shocks appear to be in a rebuilding phase. The finished 10th out of 11 teams in the AAC Indoor Championships finishing ahead of only Temple. They were badly hurt by injuries to Paula Garcia and Destiny Masters. IIRC Paula who had the fastest indoor 200m time going into the indoor championship was unable to compete. Destiny tried to compete and picked up a few points but she was clearly hampered by some kind of leg injury.

Paula has competed in a couple events so far in the outdoor season but still appears to be less than 100%. Destiny has not competed yet during the outdoor season nor has Yazmine Wright who as far as I know is not injured. From what I can tell none of these ladies will be competing at the KT Woodman this weekend.

After this weekend their are 5 weeks to go before the AAC Outdoor Championships to be held at Cessna Stadium

I understand Yazmine taking it easy at this point as she has had a very busy year with her XC Championship and her mult-event performances during the indoor season. Keeping her healthy and fresh is probably more important than any benefit she might get competing in these earlier meets.

As a multi-event athlete coming back for Destiny can be challenging and it's possible she aggravated her condition trying to make a go of it in the Indoor Championships.

Whether or not we see Paula, Destiny and Yazmine competing in the AAC Outdoor Championships this year would seem to be kind of up in the air at this point. But we will see. Just because they aren't competing in meets doesn't mean they are working out and training to some degree in practices.

These 3 ladies plus shot putter Amanda Kakoulias are pretty much the main scoring threats for the Lady Shocks.

[1972Shocker]

Shockers At John Jacobs Invitational in Norman, Oklahoma - April 22nd and 23rd

https://goshockers.com/news/2022/4/2...in-norman.aspx

I assume the weather conditions in the OKC area were similar to what we have had in Wichita the last couple of days which, due to the high winds, were not good. How much those conditions may have helped or hindered specific events is hard to tell. Hopefully, by the time the AAC Championships get to Wichita in 3 weeks things will have settle down a bit.

Highlights for the Shocker women included junior Margaux Thompson with a personal-best pole vault clearance of 3.90m/12-9.5, earning her the outright ownership of the seventh spot on the Shocker all-time list. Her mark also ranks her fifth in the conference. I've seen pole vault competitions in windy conditions before and it is definitely a challenge. So this was a very good performance for Margaux.

in the track, Paula Garcia placed third in both the 100 meters (11.78) and 200 meters (23.94), recording season bests in each. True freshman Faith Turner finished right behind Garcia in the 200m with a personal-best time of 24.16, securing her the 10^th spot on the WSU all-time list. None of these times would score points at the AAC Championship. Good to see Paula continue to improve after whatever injury she was dealing with at the end of the Indoor season but she is still not back to her pre-injury performance levels and may not get their with only 3 weeks remaining before the AAC Championships. Faith continues to develop and perform well in her 1st year.

This is definitley a rebuilding year for the Lady Shockers. They only have a handful of key performers capable for competing for Top 3 finishes in the AAC this year. Two of those atheltes, Paula Garcia and Destiny Masters were fighting injuries at the end of the indoor season. As a result the Lady Shocks finished 10th (next to last) in the AAC Indoor Championships.

As I mentioned above Paula is competing this spring but is not back to pre-injury form.

Destiny, who is one of the better high jumpers, long jumpers and mulit-event athletes in the conference, has only competed in one event this spring. The javelin throw at Emporia State back on March 19th. With only 3 weeks remaining before the AAC Outdoor Championships my guess is Destiny has been shut down for this spring season. Whether that was due to aggravating her previous injury or sustaining a new injury is impossible to know. But she is too valuable of an athlete to take chances with. Best to get her healthy again.

Also, Yazmine Wright, the Shockers stand out middle distance/long distance runner who finished 2nd in both the mile and 3k at the AAC Indooor has not competed this spring. I think Yazmine still has eligibility remaining. I am not aware of any injuries for Yazmine but that doesn't mean she did not sustain an injury in training. I am hoping that in Yazmine's case they are just taking it easy with her after a grueling and successful XC and Indoor seasons for Yazmine. She is very experienced so I don't think running in any of these regular season meets is necessarily all that important to Yazmine. But we will see.

Amanda Kakoulias, the WSU record holder in the indoor shot put and 2nd all-time at WSU in the shot put, has had 2 consecutive subpar performances putting the shot 42 to 44 feet in her last 2 meets after being 49.5 to 50.5 feet in her previous 3 meets. Not sure if she is just not totally on her game or if she has an injury she is dealing with. While her mark of 50-8.25 back on March 25th is 3rd best in the AAC this season her marks in her last 2 meets would not score in the AAC Championships.

The bottom line is that another finish at or near the bottom of the AAC appears to be in store for the AAC Championships in 3 weeks which is unfortuante, since those are being hosted by Wichita State.

[1972Shocker]

Not a whole lot going on for the Shocker Women at Friday's Shocker open.

Perhaps the most important thing was Amanda Kakoulias putting the shot for her second-best mark of the season (15.31m/50-2.75) to remain third in the conference. Her recent performances had been sub-par.

In the pole vault, Karen Lyvers recorded a new personal best for the second-straight meet with her jump of 3.87m/12-8 to continue to climb the Shocker all-time list, moving up to No. 8. Samantha Marx also etched her name in the record books with a personal-best throw of 50.01m/164-1 in the hammer, sliding into the ninth place all-time. While Chidera Okoro joined the 12-meter club in the triple jump with her new personal-best mark of 12.20m/40-0.5 to win the event. Lyvers mark in the pole vault might score a few points in the AAC Championhip but the marks by the two freshman, Marx and Okoro would not. But good to see the freshies making progress.

As far as next weeks AAC Outdoor Championships at Cessna Stadium are concerned my expectations for the Lady Shocks are very low. With Paula Garia seemily still slowed a little form whatever was ailing her at the end of the indoor season and with Yazmine Wright and Destiny Masters apparently sitting out this outdoor season I think a last place finish for the Shocker women is definitely a possibility.

[1972Shocker]

I guess there was some excitement at the Shocker women at the Shocker open on Friday:

Price competed collegtiately at Southern Illinois when the Shocks were still a member of the Valley.

[1972Shocker]

It won't make much, if any, difference in how he Shockers finish as a team but there was a positive surprise for the Lady Shockers in the first event today as true freshie Smanatha Mark, out of Andale, set a new personal best by about 10 feet in the hammer throw with a heave of 173-11 to finish 8th and earn 1 point for the Shocks. There were only 2 freshies in the field of 15 with the other freshie finishing 10th. Hopefully, the portends good things for Samantha down the line. Maybe the visit by world record holder Deanna Price to the Shocker Open last Friday inspired Samantha.

Samantha underperformed a little bit in the javelin with a throw of 138-11 to finish 6th. Maybe a notch below expectations. So 4 points from the Freshman.

Freshman Brianna Utecht and Junior Maria Romero are sitting in 6th and 7th after Day 1 (4 events) in the heptathlon. Brianna has a shot at breaking 5000 points. Won't move her up much but would be a nice way to finish her 1st year.

Yazmine Wright was a good student and has graduated with a degree in Biological Sciences. I think she wants to be a vet. In any case, she may not be competing this spring because she wanted to focus on her academics and perhaps had enough of the track grind especially on team that is rebuilding. Can't say that I blame her for that. Best of luck in whatever the future holds for Yazmine. She had a terrific Shocker career.

[1972Shocker]

Brianna Utecht and Maria Romero held their positions from day 1 in the heptahtlon and finished 6th and 7th. The freshman Utecht did break 5000 points as she set a new PB at 5,065 for 6th place. Not bad for a freshman. Brianna looks like a pretty good athlete and should steadily improve in her Shocker career. Maria finished 7th with 4,856 points just 9 short of her PB.

The big question in this event for the Shockers is what is going on with Destiny Masters who did not compete this spring.

[1972Shocker]

In a bit of a surprise the Lady Shocks finished 3rd in the 4x100 relay run by Faith Turner, Paula Garcia, Sydney Johnson, and Brianna Utecht. Paula is a senior but Faith, Sydney and Brianna are all freshman. So that bodes well for the future. In fact, Houston finished 5th and Temple and Cincinnati were DQ'd. Of course relay races involves things other than just pure speed.

[1972Shocker]

As impressive and exciting as the Shocker Men's upset of Houston to win the 2022 AAC Outdoor T&F Championship the performance of the Shocker women, while expected, is a little concerning. After all the Lady Shocks won the AAC Outdoor T&F Championships in 2019. While the Shocks did manage to avoid finishing dead last this year they only managed to score 30.5 points finishing ahead of only Tulane (23.5 points).

2/3rds of the Shocker points came from a handful of freshmen including the 2 relay races where 3 of the 4 members were freshmen. Clearly, we have supply chain issue with the women's track and field program. It would appear that Coach Rainbolt has a major challenge on his hands getting the women back to respectability.

[1972Shocker]

In his article previewing the AAC Outdoor Championships Taylor Eldrigde reported that the WSU women’s team has redshirted many of its top athletes, but a handful of athletes should challenge for medals.

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

No names or numbers were mentioned regarding the many redshirts although that may explain why Yazmine Wright and Destiny Masters did not compete this spring (although you can compete unattached in a redshirt year which they did not do). Actually, Destiny Master did compete in 1 event (the javelin) on March 19th at Emporia in the first meet of the spring season. Destiny was dealing with an injury in last winter's AAC Indoor Championships. Yazmine did not compete in any spring meets or events. Also Yazmine just received her degree bilogical sciences and I think she wants to be a vet. So she may or may not be done at Wichita State.

Of course, Taylor said many top athletes were redshirted. That would imply more than 2 to me. Other than Destiny Masters and possibly Yazmine Wright, I really do not know who that would be.

I would like to hear the story on who they are talking about.

It's clear though that top athletes were in short supply for the Lady Shockers. They won a grand total of 1 medal. A Bronze Medal for finishing 3rd in the 4x100 relay.