Baylor’s track and field athletes produced three event wins, including a school record and current No. 1 collegiate time to open the Rod McCravy Memorial Friday at Nutter Field House.
Senior pole vaulter Annie Rhodes tied her own indoor school record and won the event title with a best clearance of 14-5.25 [4.40m]. Rhodes had to wait almost two hours before her first attempt, after passing on the opening seven bars of the competition. She proceeded to clear her opening bar on the first attempt, before taking three jumps to make the next height. Rhodes then cleared her winning bar on her first attempt. She moved to 14-9 [4.50m] as the final competitor in the field, but was unable to clear that.
To close out the night, the women’s distance medley relay claimed another event title and set the NCAA’s top time for the current indoor season with a mark of 11:12.39. Alison Andrews-Paul led-off for the Bears and was followed by Kiana Hawn, Aaliyah Miller and Maggie Montoya with the final three legs having to run alone in front. The quartet’s time is also 10th-best in BU history and was more than four seconds ahead of the rest of the field.
The Bears cleaned up in the 600-yard run. Senior newcomer Zak Curran won the event in 1:10.23, but he was followed closely by Caleb Dickson (2nd, 1:11.30) and Brandon Moore (3rd, 1:12.03). Running in a separate heat, Danny Leland was fourth overall in 1:12.09) and Robert Dutton took sixth in 1:13.01.
Jenna Pfeiffer had a career-day in the pentathlon, placing second overall with a personal-best point total of 3,932 points. The senior Bear notched the third-best pentathlon score in school history by setting personal-best marks in the 60-meter hurdles (9.02), shot put (37-10.75 [11.55m]) and long jump (17-9 [5.41m]). Pfeiffer’s shot put mark was tops among the 11 athletes in the competition.
OTHER NOTABLES
Annie Rhodes tied her own indoor school record, which she set at last year’s Tyson Invitational.
Sam Sahli set a personal best by finishing third in the 5,000 meters with a time of 15:06.62.
Alex Lord notched a personal-best mark of 5-6 [1.68m] to be sixth in the high jump.
Chase Hood (2,797 pts.) is third and Luke Littlefield (2,736 pts.) is fifth in the heptathlon competition with three more events to conclude the competition on Saturday.
TOP QUOTE
“It was a good day. Our multi-event athletes did really well. Jenna (Pfeiffer) wanted to close out a little bit better in the 800 meters, but it was her first time to run it this year. Annie (Rhodes) struggled a little bit early on, because she had to wait so long to get started. Once she got rolling she started popping some pretty nice bars. In the DMR, we thought Clemson was going to be in the race with us to help Maggie (Montoya) on the end, but Aaliyah (Miller) ran 2:05 and Kiana (Hawn) was 52.8, so they busted it open. Maggie was out by herself and that makes it tough. We were hoping to run a little bit faster, but they ran great. One of the highlights of the day was our group of guys in the 600. They all ran great and that gives us some options for that event at conference.” - head coach Todd Harbour on the first day of competition
