ACU Heads to College Station for First Meet of the Indoor Season

The ACU track and field team opens its indoor season by competing in the McFerrin 12-Degree Invitational on the campus of Texas A&M on Saturday. The meet will be a low-key meet designed to get in some competition before the Christmas break.

Joining ACU and host Texas A&M in the field will be Baylor, Sam Houston State, SMU, and UTSA.

This meet will be the first competition for several newcomers to the program. There are plans to have three 4x400 relays for the women and the men and some of the newcomers will only run on the relays this weekend.

ACU entries for the men include: 60 (Horatio Brooks); 300 (Gage Heighten); 1000 (Evan Martin); Mile (Benjamin Castro, Vincent Luffey); 3,000 (Mark Barajas, Carlos Cortez); 60 hurdles (Canaan Fairley, Miguel Hall); high jump (Canaan Fairley); long jump (Horatio Brooks); weight throw (Rhet Punt, Matthew Udemba).

There will also be a large relay pool to fill out the three 4x400 relays and this pool includes newcomers who will only be competing in the relays – Durrell Collins, Abraham Olufemi-Dada, Nickens Lemba – and two returnees also running solely on the relays this weekend – Ethan Krause and Ryan McMeen.

ACU entries for the women include: 60 (Lauren Foxworth, Darinasia Taylor, Kee'Lani Whitlock, Neriah Williams, Morgan Morris, Halle Gunter, Jaeden Thomas); 300 (Morgan Morris, Kaycian Johnson); 600 (Madelyn McFadden, Anna Vyn, Gracee Whiteaker, Jalyn Childers); 1000 (Emma Santoro); Mile (Lola Buentello); 60 hurdles (Hana Banks, Nele Huth, Natalie Poe, Skyla Riedel); high jump (Kaia Anderson, Kennadi Payne, Natalie Poe); long jump (Halle Gunter, Nele Huth, Skyla Riedel, Jaeden Thomas); shot put (Sterling Glenn, Ciara Tilley, Mariana Van Dyk); weight throw (Sterling Glenn, Mariana Van Dyk).

Because the McFerrin Invitational will not have a triple jump in the meet, two Wildcats took part in the OU Winter Field Fest. Arthur Jenkins recorded a 14.94m triple jump, while Mackenzie Flaugher went 11.70m.

The McFerrin 12-Degree Invitational will be held in the Murray Fasken Indoor Track on the Texas A&M campus. The field events will begin at 2 p.m. and the running events at 4 p.m. on Saturday.


Coach Miles Smith: I'm excited to see our kids compete. They have been working hard. We have a lot of newcomers who are getting their first taste of collegiate competition, so it will be fun to watch them compete.  Our goal is to come out healthy and learn what we need to work on over the next few weeks before the bulk of our season kicks off in mid-January.