Big 12 Track Championships: Kansas State women in early lead

The first day of the 2018 Big 12 Outdoor Championships is done and dusted. The Kansas State women are currently in first place with 22 points, but there’s such a logjam at the top that there’s only four points separating first place from fourth. Surprisingly, the men’s team is not far behind with 20 points and in second place behind current leader Texas.

All of the women’s points have come from a single event, the women’s hammer throw. The Wildcats dominated the event, with Janee’ Kassanavoid winning the event for the second year in a row, this time with a monster throw of 68.21m on her final attempt, although she’d essentially won the event out of the gate when even her first attempt was well ahead of the rest of the field. In winning the event, Kassanavoid also set a new personal best mark, a new school record, and a new meet record, besting the previous mark set by another Wildcat, Sara Savatovic back in 2015.

She was joined on the podium by teammates Helene Ingvaldsen (63.40m), Shaeyln Ward (55.96m) and Taylor Latimer (54.97m) who finished 3rd, 5th, and 7th respectively to put Kansas State in first place.

On the men’s side, Mitch Dixon opened the scoring with a solid second place finish in the men’s hammer throw event. He hit a mark of 64.95m to finish behind Kansas’ Gleb Dudarev. This was the first time all season that Dixon had not taken first place, but it was good for 8 points for the Wildcats.

The surprise came later in the day when sophomores Derek Selk and Logan Wolfley went 3-4 in the men’s javelin throw, both notching new personal best marks in the process. Selk hit 67.15m while Wolfley threw for 64.83m. They earned 11 points for the team, pushing Kansas State into second place. Indeed, for a short while, the Wildcats were just one point off the lead before 6th and 7th place finishes for Texas in the 10,000m race helped the Longhorns increase their lead.

In the day’s early action, Kansas State’s multi event athletes were in competition. In the heptathlon, through the first four events—100H, high jump, shot put, and 200m—Ariel Okorie is currently in second place with 3,417 points with teammate Lauren Taubert right behind her in third place with 3,375 points. Morgan Coffman is currently in eighth place.

In the decathlon, Kansas State sophomore Aaron Booth is on fire. After five events—100m. long jump, high jump, shot put, and 400m—the New Zealand native is currently in second place with 3853 points. Teammates Antuane Dennard, Max Estill, and Simone Fassina are holding at 5-7-8 currently.

Action continues today in Waco with the rest of the heptathlon and decathlon events starting at 10 AM, followed by the men’s and women’s long jump events, the men’s high jump, several prelims for sprints and middle distance races, the men’s javelin and shot put, and the women’s discus contest. Stay up to date with all the results HERE or by following the Kansas State Track team’s Twitter (@KStateTFXC).