The WSC track team was scheduled to compete last Friday, but due to predicted bad weather, the meet was moved up a day to Thursday. This was the second outdoor meet of the season for the Wildcats, who hosted the Wildcat Classic.

The Fort Hays State Track Meet Invite featured other NCAA Division II schools from the University of Nebraska-Kearney, Wayne State and Fort Hays State as well as NAIA schools Bethany, Southwestern, and Northwest Kansas. In addition, there were junior colleges that competed, Barton County, Cloud County, Colby, Dodge City and Pratt.

Standouts from the track meet on the women’s side were a first place finish from freshman thrower McKenzie Scheil. Scheil won the hammer throw with a mark of 273’ 8” and placed second in the shot put with a mark of 45’ 10.” Both events were recorded as qualifying NCAA provisional marks.

“We have the likes of Mckenzie Sheil, she’s going to be leading the throws especially in the women’s side,” senior Robert Sullivan said. “Overall we’re looking at her and Jaydon Wagner leading the throws, who are both underclassmen.”

Sophomore Kenzie Sullivan placed second in the discuss and finished seventh in the shot put. Junior Tia Jones posted a fourth place in the hammer throw and in the shot put.

Sophomore Sarah Stang took home sixth in the hammer throw and eighth in the shot put. Freshman Nicole Heeren finished seventh in the discus and seventh in the hammer throw.

Other top finishes on the women’s side were freshman Alison Dykman and sophomore Hanna Lazure each finishing fifth in the high jump clearing 4’ 11”. Freshman sprinter Jordyn Pester placed fifth in the 100-meter dash and seventh in the 200-meter dash.

Freshman Molli Vasa came in ninth in the 100-meter dash and senior Morgan Shearer took home ninth in the 100-meter hurdles.

The men’s side saw sophomore Cade Kalkowski and junior Dylan Kaup hit NCAA provisional marks in the hammer.

Kalkowski finished second with a throw of 187’ 10” in the hammer throw and Kaup was not too far behind him for a finish of 183’ 2” which landed him third place. Kaup later posted an eighth place in the discus with a mark of 145’ 10”.

“Preston Davis, he threw 53’ 94” in the javelin, for him to be a 400-meter hurdler and have absolutely no background in the javelin besides just picking it up last year, throwing a toss like that is only about eighteen feet off from the school record, which was just set last year by Derek Lahm,” Sullivan said.

Senior Matt Nemec captured a fourth place in the 100-meter dash while sophomore Preston Davis came in fourth in the 110-meter hurdles, and also finished fifth in the javelin at 163’ 9”.

In the long jump, Sullivan finished sixth place while freshman sprinter and long jumper Mikhail Sands came in seventh.

“With it being a younger team, it’s going to be a lot of growing both mentally as well as physically with them being raw in the events and younger coming in,” Sullivan said. “We have these 18, 19, and 20 year old kids coming in with some talent, so it’s obviously going to be a little bit of some trade off, we can have some immaturity or some inconsistency even when you get older.”

The Wayne State men and women’s track and field teams will be back in action on April 5 and 6 at the Concordia Invite in Seward, Nebraska.