The WKU Track & Field teams cleaned house at the Indiana University Relays, as they won first place titles in five different events.

WKU won the women’s distance medley, the men’s 60-meter, the men’s 60-meter hurdles, the men’s 200-meter and the men’s long jump. They’ve now recorded 14 first-place finishes this season.

The women’s distance medley title was won by Alexa Brainard, Ariel Terrell, Callie Donaldson and Savannah Ames, as the team recorded a time of 12:37.62.

Julius Morris won the Men’s 60-meter title with a time of 6.85 seconds, and Jonathan Hayden won the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 8.19 seconds, his first top finish of the year. Olympian Emmanuel Dasor won the men’s 200-meter with a time of 21.26, which was also his first title of the season, and Desmond Mobley won the men’s long jump, reaching a distance of 7.39-meters (24 feet, 3 inches).

WKU dominated the men’s 200-meter, as they took five of the top six spots, with Dasor finishing first, Ventavius Sears finishing second (21.31 seconds), Morris finishing fourth (21.62 seconds), William Bush finishing fifth (21.86 seconds) and Eli Minor finishing sixth (22.19 seconds).

“Indiana provided a great venue for us to compete on a track similar to the one that will be used for the conference championships in a few weeks,” WKU track head coach Erik Jenkins said in a press release. “We were able to really evaluate ourselves against quality competition. We had some good things happen and saw areas where we need to continue to improve in order to be successful.”

Aside from the first-place finishes, WKU had a lot of consistency in other events as well. The men recorded 18 top-eight finishes, and the women recorded 14 top-eight finishes.

This included the women’s 60-meter prelims, where two Toppers finished in the top eight as Peli Alzola finished fifth and Jadzia Beasley finished eighth. Those same two finished in the top eight in the women’s 200-meter, as Beasley and Alzola finished sixth and fourth, respectively.

Sandra Akachukwu also turned in two top-eight finishes herself, as she finished third in the high jump by clearing 1.65 meters (5 feet, 5 inches). She also finished sixth in the long jump, with a distance of 5.51 meters (18 feet, 1 inch).

Jenessa Jackson made significant contributions as well finishing fifth in the shot put with a throw of 14.98 meters (49 feet, 1.75 inches) and sixth in the weight throw with a throw of 19.09 meters (62 feet, 7.75 inches).

For the men, Dasor posted his second top-eight finish by placing second in the 400-meter with a time of 47.9 seconds. It was the first time that he had participated in the event this season.

On top of Mobley’s long jump title, he also finished fifth in the high jump by clearing 2.04 meters (6 feet, 8.25 inches).

Sammy Kipkirui, who was competing in his first event this season, finished second in the 3,000-meter dash, recording a time of 8:37.62.

Following a week off, WKU will compete in the Music City Challenge on Feb. 10 and 11. It will be the last meet before the conference championships. 

Reporter Jeremy Chisenhall can be reached at 859-760-0198 and [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @JSChisenhall