“I think it’s important to have a home meet to stay connected with the community, to make sure the people you live with and see daily get a chance to see you compete,” track and field head coach Walt Drenth said. “It’s good for the kids, some of the families don’t get a chance to travel, so they get to see them.” 

The Spartan sprinters dominated the competition and won four events. The women’s 4 x 100 meter team comprised of juniors Autumn Robinson, Denise Spann, Taylor Mullins and freshman Brooke Bogan posted a time of 48.30 in the windy conditions.

“The weather isn’t what we want, but we’re always taught not to have any excuses,” Mullins said. “Getting out there and competing to the best of our ability is what we try to do.”

Mullins also won the 400 meter hurdles with a time of 1:04.10, and Drenth said he was impressed.

“I loved what Taylor Mullins did in the intermediate hurdles,” he said. “It’s really tough to run fast in that race when it’s windy. She ran pretty fast last week. To come out here and win and be competitive, I thought it was nice.” 

Drenth also was impressed with the men’s 4 x 100 relay team of juniors Will Agodu and Jonathan Fife, freshman Earvin DaSilva and sophomore Savalas Morgan. The team took first with a time of 42.42.

“With the Men’s 4 x 100, the time wasn’t great, but I think that team has the potential to be pretty competitive,” Drenth said. 

With respect to the field events, redshirt senior Katelyn Daniels stood out with victories in the women’s shot put and discus. She threw the shot put 15.15 meters, and the discus 53.42 meters. She said she was pleased with her work, but also very complimentary of her fellow throwers.

“I still have a lot to work on. There were ups and downs to what I feel like I did today, but I was just happy to achieve some consistency,” she said. “To get warmed up really quickly, we were kind of thrust into (shot put) after discus finals. We had every single one of us (throwers) make the shot put final, most of us make the discus final, a lot of us in the hammer final.” 

Drenth looked at the event with the conditions as they were as more of a test of character than skill.

“I thought our toughness as a general rule was something I was excited about," Drenth said. "Not in ideal conditions, coming off a weekend where the weather was ideal in a really big meet at North Carolina State, to come out here and really get after it, I thought we did a really nice job.”

Mullins cited a team mantra to explain the collective performance despite the conditions.

“One of our team mottos is ‘Battle Adversity,’ and this meet definitely has some adversity with the snow," Mullins said. "I mean, this morning the field was covered in snow. But coming here and just doing what we need to do is what we do.” 

Drenth said while the weather is uncontrollable, the team mentality is.

“It doesn’t matter, the people who choose to engage are going to have a good meet. Somebody is going to win, somebody's going to run fastest or throw farthest, it might as well be us,” he said. “That’s been our mentality, to go out there and not care. Something we talk about is that you have to control the variables that you have control over, and the first time you complain about the weather, you’ve kind of stepped over your pay grade, frankly.”

The team travels to Louisville this weekend for a Big Ten-ACC Challenge meet. 

“When the weather is better, we’ll run faster, we’ll throw farther, we’ll jump higher, all those things will be true,” Drenth said. “But choosing to engage and be competitive, those things will add to us being better.”