The Saint Louis U. High track and field team competed in its first two meets of the season: the SLUH JV/C #1 Meet and the McCullough-Douglass Invitational. With many standout performances, the SLUH track and field team has started its season strong and expectations are high.

“There hasn't been an opportunity for last year’s seniors to pass on any wisdom to younger athletes about anything and so we really were starting over in a lot of ways,” said head coach Joe Porter. “It was good it was at our place with two teams that we have a very good relationship with—Rockwood Summit and De Smet—and it was nice that we were able to spend most of the meet teaching kids about how meets work. And in that way it's 100 percent a success.”

On Thursday, SLUH hosted De Smet and Rockwood Summit to SLUH’s first track and field meet in over 670 days. Despite the downpour of rain and possibility of lightning, the meet was able to continue until thunder was heard and the events near the end of the meet were canceled, preventing athletes from competing in discus, pole vault, javelin, and the 4x400 relay.

One of the many highlights of SLUH’s performance was junior Keshon Parker, who was tied for first in the 100-meter hurdles (15.74 seconds), first in the 300 hurdles (46.34), fourth in the long jump (16 feet, 11.50 inches), and first in the triple jump (32-11.00). On the distance level, junior Joe LaBarge and sophomore Tim Greiner both ran under 10:40 in the 3200, impressive times for a JV race.

There were no spectators at SLUH’s meet, but parents were able to sign up to volunteer with helping out around the meet—getting times, moving the hurdles and sprinting blocks on and off the track, and filming each event.

The following Saturday, SLUH’s varsity team competed with 12 other teams at the McCullough-Douglass Invitational, hosted by Festus High School. The team took third at the meet, but that was because there were races that SLUH did not take part in.

From sprints to long distance, SLUH athletes dominated in a range of events, showing the large amount of talent on the team. Freshman Ryan Wingo won the 100-meter dash with a time of 10.92 seconds earlier in the day and then later finished first in the 200 with a time of 22.47. Junior Joseph Meehan finished fourth in the 400, running a 54.77. 

“If you look at the national rankings for freshmen in the 100-meter run, Ryan is currently ranked eighth, and he's the first athlete not from Texas, Florida, or Georgia,” said Porter. “Ryan's first race at the gate was outstanding, and we've found some technical things that we're going to improve on as the season progresses and hopefully continue to improve. But winning the 100 by over half a second and the 200 by almost two full seconds is pretty impressive.”

For the SLUH mid-distance and distance team, the team competed strongly despite being up against some strong runners from Festus. Sophomore Nolan Meara got fifth place in the 1600 with a time of 4:45 followed by a seventh place performance for senior Daniel Hogan. In the 3200, junior Grant Brawley finished fourth in the 3200 with 9:50 just behind three runners from Festus. However, one of the most stunning performances on the day came from junior Baker Pashea who won the 800 in 1:58, nine seconds in front of the second place finisher.

“Baker's time of 1:58 currently sits as third in the state of Missouri for all 800 runners. There's only three guys that have broken two minutes, and he won by nine seconds, so it wasn't like it was pushing up at any point in the race,” said Porter. “From the gun, he was gone and no one was with him, and in that way it was pretty impressive. He looks very much under control, and we felt like there were some things can fix in terms of his race as well.”

SLUH will host another JV/C race on April 1, and the varsity will compete at Eureka on April 8.

 “We want to get as many chances to compete this season and see where we are,” said Porter. “It's still early April, and we want to be our best in a month to month and a half from now.”