Track and field racks up wins at Vanderbilt

Hunter Frint

The WKU indoor track and field team traveled back home from Nashville this weekend in possession of six event wins from the Vanderbilt Invitational.

For the women’s program, junior Carroll Hardy was expected to perform and did not disappoint. Hardy captured first place in the 200-meter event with a 24-second run and a time of 7.30 seconds in the 60-meter dash. With just 5 seconds off that time, Hardy would have set a facility record.

The Lady Toppers relay team — Hardy, senior Jessica Gelibert, sophomore Khadijah Valentine and graduate student Shantol Hemley — earned third place honors in the 4×400-meter with a time of 3:46.00.

“It was a good meet for us to earn wins against quality competition,” Head Coach Erik Jenkins said. “We had schools represented from Conference USA and the SEC. I thought our athletes went out and competed well against the competition.”

On the men’s side, the Toppers captured the 200-meter and 400-meter dashes with the help of junior Emmanuel Dasor’s first place runs. Adding to his winning streak, Dasor’s time of 21.07 seconds in the 200 meter was a tie with the program best as well as a record at the Vanderbilt facility.

Dasor’s accomplishments so far this indoor season have presented him with the Conference USA honor of Male Track Co-Athlete of the Week. Dasor continued to prove his talent when he ran a personal best time in the 400-meter event of 47.32 seconds.

Along with first place, WKU also took home second and third in the 200-meter. A time of 21.26 was good for junior Ventavius Sears to place second with sophomore Julius Morris finishing a hair behind in third place with a time of 21.27 seconds.

Three more WKU athletes were awarded first place: Sears, freshman Keenon Laine and senior Vincent Wyant. Sears and Laine earned first in jumps with Laine’s 2.16 meters in the high jump and Sears’ 16.07 meters in triple jump. Wyant took home the top spot in the 60-meter hurdles with 7.83 seconds.

Also of note was sophomore Nick Demaline’s personal record with a toss of 18.26 meters. This distance put Demaline at third place in the Vanderbilt Invitational’s shot put event.

The results of this extraordinary weekend for the team had quite a few broken records, new personal records and several athletes ranking in the top spots in the nation. These include Dasor, Sears and Wyant.

“We’ve got a long way to go,” Jenkins said.