The Saint Louis U. High track and field team recently had three meets: the SLUH Invitational on April 1, the Eureka Wildcat Classic on April 8, and the SLUH JV/C #2 on April 14.

The SLUH won the SLUH Invitational with 123 points, followed by Lafayette with 74 points. Although the day was somewhat cold and windy, the meet was successful as a whole and highlighted the depth of the program. The team proved its depth with winning many events, and freshman Ryan Wingo—ranked third in state—added to that proof with an excellent 400-meter dash when he previously competed in shorter events like the 100 and 200. 

Successes with first place included junior Conner Greninger in the 300 hurdles with a time of 44.58 seconds, junior Eric Piening in the high jump with six feet and six inches, junior Sam Kean in the pole vault with 10 feet, freshman Ryan Wingo in the 400 with 51.35 seconds, sophomore Stefan Mayer in the 400 (JV Division) with 58:50, and junior Baker Pashea in the 1600 with 4:31. SLUH also earned first in the 4x800 relay with a time of 8:45 and first in the 4x400 relay with a time of 3:38. This was the first time SLUH hosted a varsity meet outside of its conference meet in the 16 years that head coach Joe Porter has been here at SLUH. 

  “[The SLUH Invitational] was the result of Lindbergh canceling their Invitational; I was talking to some of the coaches from the schools that were trying to find a meet and most of them are already hosting another meet. So it became our turn to take one for the team,” said Porter. “We've been kind of playing around with our lineups— I don't like over racing guys early in the season where it's cold and especially when the sprinters are more likely to pull something. So we don't do a lot of over racing of guys, but instead we rely a lot on just getting everybody's experiences … we've tried to run guys in different events. I think it shows the depth of our team that we didn't run all of our studs in every race, and we were still able to win the meet.”

The varsity team then made its way down to Eureka to compete in the Eureka Wildcat Classic. Accompanied by rain and the cold, SLUH took second overall in the meet. In a continuation of the team showing off its depth, SLUH led many events. Wingo won both the 100 (11.10) and 200 (22.37)  and set a meet record in both races, senior Aiden Byrne placed third in the 200 with 23.86, Pashea won the 800m with 1:59, Kellogg finished third in the 3200 with 10:05, Piening conquered the high jump with 6 feet 2 inches setting a meet record, and Harris came in second in the triple jump finals with 39-05.75. 

“We were missing a lot of guys, (and) we didn't have any sophomores because they were in retreat. We had probably another eight or so juniors and seniors that were going on retreat that we would have used in that meet,” said Porter. “And again, we're still not over-racing guys, we're still not over using guys. And we were still second overall.”

SLUH continued its success in the SLUH JV/C #2 meet on Wednesday. SLUH hosted five schools and still made tremendous success. Junior Francis Alford got first in the 1600 with a time of 4:50, sophomore Steffan Mayer won the 800 with a time of 2:11, freshman Benjamin Kean won the pole vault with 8 feet, and SLUH won both the 4x100 relay and the 4x400 relay. SLUH was able to get many athletes a chance to compete; 44 athletes ran in the 100-meter dash and 29 athletes ran in the 1600. 

SLUH continued to show off its depth in this meet, and freshman Elijah Smith is a good example of this depth. 

“Elijah Smith threw over 100 feet in javelin for the first time. And that's not his primary event, he's also a pole vaulter, but we haven't tried from time to time and here he is at his second meet, and he threw over 100 feet. So that was good. And then he came back and was third in pole vault,” said Porter. 

SLUH varsity will compete this Saturday at the Corey Siebert Invitational, the SLUH freshman squad will race on Tuesday at the Kirkwood C Invitational, and on Wednesday, the JV team will participate at Webster JV meet.