INDOOR TRACK & FIELD

The Forester indoor track and field program kicked off its season at the Strive for Greatness Invitational hosted by Indiana Tech at the Turnstone Center.

Sophomore transfer Emma Wilson headlined the invite by winning, hitting A standards and establishing new meet records in every race she ran which included the 1000M (2:56.27), mile (4:54.35), 3000M (10:14.00) and 5000M (17:33.36). She also ran a leg of the winning 4×800 meter relay team that clocked in at 9:35.17.

Running the 4×800 with Wilson included Sydney Lambert, Jessica Chojnacki and Olivia Von Gunten. Lambert also picked up a pair of second place finishes in the 1000M and mile with times of 3:01.90 and 5:06.92 respectively. Von Gunten took third in the 1000M (3:10.66) to wrap the HU sweep while Chojnacki did the same in the mile with her third place time of 5:12.02.

Saige Norris was on Wilson’s heels in the 3000M to cross the line second in 10:15.05. Ireland Dodson’s time of 2:29.90 in the 800M was good for second place while Meg McDonald claimed fourth in 2:34.69. Caitlyn Fisher (1:53.01) and Hannah Richer (2:05.87) went fourth and fifth in the 600M to round out Huntington’s top five finishes.

On the men’s side, the Foresters dominated the long distance events. In the 3000M, Gentie topped the field in 8:28.41 for a new program and meet record while his teammates claimed three of the next four spots. Elijah Chesterman (8:28:74) took 2nd, Reece Gibson (8:39.55) claimed 3rd and Aaron Hendryx (8:50.53) finished 5th.

The 5000M had a similar feel with HU laying claim to five out of the top six spots behind Chesterman’s 1st place finish of 15:02.89. The other Forester finishes included Gentie (2nd, 15:08.20), Gibson (3rd, 15:29.30), Austin Liepe (4th, 15:45.80) and Hendryx (6th, 16:01.04).

Huntington was also well represented in the field events behind Malcolm Rencher’s 3rd place finish in long jump (7.04M) which proved a new HU record. Kyler Bourne took 2nd in pole vault (4.10M).

Seth Parsell had two top five finishes in throws which included shot put (3rd, 11.92M) and weight throw (4th, 13.12M). Justin Edwards rounded out HU’s top five finishes by taking 5th in the 800M in 2:14.38.

When all was said and done, nine HU athletes punched their ticket to NAIA Indoor Nationals by hitting ten A standards and five B standards. Also, all Forester first place finishes were the season’s fastest NAIA times across the nation.

MEN
3000M – Gentie (A), Chesterman (A), Gibson (B)
5000M – Chesterman (A), Gentie (B)
Long Jump – Rencher (B)

WOMEN
1000M – Wilson (A), Lambert (B)
Mile – Wilson (A), Lambert (A), Chojnacki (B)
3000M – Wilson (A), Norris (A)
5000M – Wilson (A)
4x800M – Wilson, Lambert, Chojnacki, Von Gunten (A)

Huntington is off until January 30 when they compete at the Trine University Invitational.