2017-18 Shocker Women XC and Track & Field

[1972Shocker]

Wichita State's cross country teams will open its seasons with a home contest Saturday morning at the 69th Annual J.K. Gold Classic at the Four Mile Creek Resort - formerly R.A.F.T. Course.

The field this year is actually one of the better fields this tournament has hosted. Typically this is the opening race of the WSU XC season and has usually consisted of WSU, mostly smaller colleges and jucos. This year Missouri, K-State and Missouri State will all have teams in the field.

Looking forward to seeing how Shocker Jr. Rebekah Topham does. Condition should be pretty good.

The Lady Shocks return only Topham and their lone senior, Jordan Maestas, from last year's team. So it appears to be a rebuilding year for the Shocker women as a team although individually Rebekah is a very strong runner.

GoShockers.com Preview

Wichita Eagle Preview

[1972Shocker]

The Shocker women defeated Missouri State 23-34 to finish the dual meet 1-2. Missouri defeated the Shocks 17-44 and K-State also beat the Shocks 26-31 on a dual scoring basis.

Shocker junior Rebekah Topham, who was the 2015 and 2016 champion, was running unattached and finished first overall with a time of 13:39. 6. Topham became the first three-time J.K. Gold Champion since Tjaart Van Niewwenhuizen won it in 87', 88' and 89' on the men's side.

Former Shocker Tonya Nero, who was the 2010 champion, finished the 4K in 13:42.1 to place second.

Rebekah and Tonya were the only runners to break the 14 minute mark for this 4K race. Since Rebekah competed unattached her finish did not count in the team scoring I don't believe. Not sure why Rebekah competed unattached.

Shocker Freshman Winnie Koskei finished 7th at 14:17.5 and Shocker Freshman Rita Schnacker finished 14th at 14:32.4. Winnie had the fastest time of any Freshman in the field.

[1972Shocker]

Wichita Eagle Article on the J.K. Gold Races

Wichita State’s Rebekah Topham, running unattached to preserve redshirt plans, won the women’s race for the third consecutive season, turning in a time of 13:39.6 on a 4K course. No. 15 Missouri won the women’s team title with its top two runners sitting out.

So apparently they are planning on a redshirt year for Rebekah.

Some nice coverage by the Eagle and Paul for the XC athletes and programs.

[1972Shocker]

Here is the story on the decision to redshirt Rebekah Topham.

Looks like the plan is to redshirt Rebekah for the enitre year. XC and both the Indoor and Outdoor T&F seasons.

I can see where this is good for both Rebekah and for the Shocker team. The women's teams lost a lot of scoring power off of last year's team that set an MVC Outdoor Championship scoring record on thier way out the door. It is unlikely that they would be competing for Championships in the AAC even with Rebekah. So this gives Rebekah the chance to train and achieve her goals and gives the younger Shocker athletes a year to develop and acclimate to D-1 track and field.

[1972Shocker]

[1972Shocker]

Nikki Larch-Miller @nikkimichelle11 Sep 6

I miss @GoShockersTFXC Surely one of my injuries will qualify me for a 6th year, right?



Note to NIkki - Call former Creighton Bluejay Grant Gibbs for expert advice and guidance on this.

[1972Shocker]

The women’s team is young and inexperienced, but Hunter has high expectations for a team that has improved each meet.

Hunter believes the team has a potential all-conference runner in freshman Winny Koskei if she runs well.

“We’re probably not at the level where we can compete for a title now because we are so young,” Hunter said. “But if we can come through with a top-five finish, to me that’s a victory. We’ve redshirted some of our top girls, so once we get those girls back in the mix with our recruits coming in and with the young core we have, I think we’ll be challenging for the title next year."

[1972Shocker]

A very young and inexperienced Lady Shocker XC team finished tied for 6th out of 12 teams in their inaugural AAC Championship in Philly today. Seems like a pretty solid showing considering the youth of this Shocker team and the fact that their best runner, Rebekah Topham, is redshirting this year.

Shocker freshman Winnie Koskei finished 18th just 7 seconds short of a 15th place finish which would have garnered her All-Conference honors. Hoperully, there are many of those ahead for Winnie.

[UCONN_Husky]

UCONN wins the AAC 'Ship !!!

First in program history !!!

Solid showing by WSU in your first AAC year.

[WuDrWu]

The live youtube coverage was excellent. A hilly course like that is likely to give WSU problems since we really can't train on that type of course anywhere here. I was listening and started watching the finishers and was like, hey, there are a lot of UCONN ladies finishing....they're going to win!

By far and away our mostly talented distance runner decided to redshirt this year. She knew we were young and wanted to have 2 good chances to win a championship. She's better on the track, but she's also tough as nails and getting better all the time and I suspect will be involved at the end the next 2 seasons. Congrats UCONN_Husky

[1972Shocker]

I didn't realize there was a magazine dedicated solely to the pole vault but I guess there is and the Shocker vaulters are on teh cover the January 2018 issue.




http://vaultermagazine.com/january-2...e-on-sale-now/

The Lady Shockers will be very young this year. I'm not 100% sure I have these all correct but I believe the Lady Shockers from left to right are:

Alyssa Wheeler, FR, Kapaun-Mt. Carmel (PR 11-6)
Jewel Eck, FR, Andale (PR 12-9)
Mia Moret, FR, Ft. Collins, CO (PR 12-0)
Alesa Frey, JR, Brookfield, MO (#5 on WSU All-Time List at 13-3.75)
Margaux Thompson, FR, Goodland, KS (PR 10-6?)
Emily Gardner, SO, Oklahoma City (PR 12-1.5)

[1972Shocker]

Wichita State is hosting the Shocker Prelude on Thursday, January11th at the Heskett Center. As its name implies this is an event that serves as an introduction to something more important. Teams participating consist of D-II prorgams (Emporia State, Fort Hays State and Oklahoma Baptist), NAIA programs (Friends and Ottawa) and Butler Couinty CC.

Not that there are not some quality athletes in these other programs but this meet is clearly not a major meet but one where younger athletes can compete and gain expreience in a meet setting at the beginning of the season.

On Saturday the Shockers head to Manhattan for a traingular meet witth host K-State and Kansas which will provide a high level of competition.

Clearly this a rebuilding year for the Lady Shocks and Coach Rainbolt it totally approaching it in that way as he is redshirting around 26 of his women athletes. Of course, in track and field you can still compete unattached during a redshirt year but your scores and results do not count. Obviously, Coach Rainbolt is looking to the future with the women's teaml. Considering the talent that moved on after last year this is not surprising.

[1972Shocker]

This weekend s the 4th annual KSU - KU - WSU Triangular Indoor Meet. This is kind of a neat meet. Only the top two finishers from each school score using a 6-5-4-3-2-1 format. So team depth isn't quite as important. If your team takes the top 5 spots in the event they still only score 11 points and if you have the two worst performers in an event you still score 3 points. The men's and women's scores are combined into a single overall score. Last year this meet was held in the Hesket Center with the KU winning with 241 points, KSU 2nd with 231 points and WSU 3rd with 217 points. This meet stems from a KSU - KU - Mizzou Triangular that was held from 1989 through 2006 when it was discontinued. The current triangular started up in 2015. Not sure who are what was the catalyst. I hope it continues.

This year they are doing something a little different to finish off the meet. Typically track meets are concluded with the women and then the men running their 4x400 relays. This year in Manhattan the meet will concluded with a mixred 4x400 relay with two men and two women on each team. Kind of neat twist.

I have always noticed that Wichita State carries a large roster of track and field athletes with a relatively large representation of Kansas kids. However, I had never compared that to the rosters of KU and K-State. I did that comparison and found that WSU not only has a larger roster but the number of Kansas kids on the roster is the largest both in absolute numbers and as a % of the overall rosters:

KSU Men: 17 Kansans/39 Total = 43.6%; KU Men: 22/49 = 44.9%; WSU Men: 38/64 = 59.4%

KSU Women: 13 Kansans/40 Total = 32.5%; KU Women: 16/49 = 32.7%; WSU Women 34/64 = 53.1%

Now why WSU carries such large rosters and why they have more native Kansan representation on their rosters is hard to say. They all have the same number of scholarships to divvy up. 12.6 for the men and 18 for the women. Theses scholarship limits include XC and all three schools have both men's and women's XC teams.

Perhaps it is just a difference in recruiting philosophy. Go after higher quality athletes and offer larger scholarships and are go for numbers and spread your scholarships thinner. This is jus a WAG but if that is the case I wonder if moving over to the AAC will cause Coach Rainbolt to change his philosophy any or continue as he has in the past.

[1972Shocker]

KSU-KU-WSU Triangular Recap

Results

[1972Shocker]

The Shockers had two competitors in yesterdasy Pentathlon at the Air Force Academy Challenge which includes the Shokers, Air Force, Colorado State and BYU.

Redshirt Freshman Kendra Henry out of Waverly, KS finsihed third with a PR of 3,365. Good to see some early incremental improvement from her very early in her career. She actually led after 4 events but could not keep up with two Colorado State runners in the 800 at altitude and fell to 3rd.

Jr. Carlea Miles was 5th with 3,087 points.

Shocks are in a major rebuilding mode on the women's side with Nikki and Taylor Larch-Miller, Breanne Borman, Gavyn Yetter and Marteisha Caines all moving on plus a few other top notch specialists.

The open events begin at 4:00 pm CT this afternnon.