The Stanford men’s and women’s track and field teams traveled to College Station, Texas this past weekend to compete at the Texas A&M Challenge. The meet featured Pac-10 schools as well as competitors from the Big-12 and SEC. Stanford, Oregon and Washington State represented the Pac-10. The Big-12 was represented by Texas A&M, Texas and Baylor, while the SEC was represented by Arkansas, Florida and South Carolina.
The men were led by an amazing performance from junior Jake Riley, who won the 5,000 meters with a personal best time of 13:52.87. Riley’s time was also enough to get him a provisional standard. Following Riley was junior Brendan Gregg, who finished in third with a time of 14:30.97.
The other Stanford runner who won an event for the men was sophomore Dylan Ferris. He captured the 800-meter title with a provisional standard time of 1:48.67. Unfortunately, Ferris missed the automatic qualifying time by less than a second — but did have the honor of setting an indoor personal record, as well as moving into second in the all-time Stanford indoor records list.
“In the open 800 I just listened to coach [Jason] Dunn and made a solid move from 350 meters out,” Ferris said.
In the men’s 3,000 meters, Stanford had three provisional times, provided by senior Justin Marpole-Bird, junior JT Sullivan and sophomore Benjamin Johnson. Marpole-Bird placed second with a time of 7:57.15, Sullivan placed seventh with a time of 8:01.61 and Johnson finished eighth with a time of 8:04.54.
“Personally, the meet was a good opportunity to gauge my readiness and fitness level by running races on consecutive days,” Marpole-Bird said. “I was very happy with a 3:58 mile split on the relay and even happier that our team was able to run well enough to probably make it to nationals on time. I was also pleased with how I fared in the 3K, although I would have liked to have been able to run a bit faster and hit the automatic standard in that event.”
In his Stanford debut, freshmen Andrew Berberick placed third in the mile with a time of 4:04.74.
Also faring well for the Cardinal, earning another provisional standard, was the distance medley relay of Sullivan, sophomore Amaechi Morton, Ferris and Marpole-Bird. The team finished in second place, right behind Oregon, with a time of 9:30.25.
“Personally on the DMR I felt like I ran a good split and got Marpole the baton in a good position,” Ferris said. “Next time we go up against Oregon we want to be sure to cross the line in front of them. With whoever runs we are ready to get a solid DMR performance and get ready for nationals.”
In the field events, the men were once more led by the consistently strong performance of freshman Jules Sharpe. Sharpe placed second in the high jump with a mark of 6-11.
On the women’s side, the distance runners dominated as well, led by sophomore Georgia Griffin, who won the 5,000 meters with a provisional time of 16:38.25.
Another meet title was provided by senior Whitney Liehr, who won the triple jump. Liehr’s mark of 41-10.5 was a provisional standard.
Next up for the Cardinal is a variety of meets that certain athletes could attend, those being in either Nebraska, New Mexico or Washington.