Written by Miguel Mendez
The Colorado College men’s and women’s track and field teams hosted the annual Colorado College Invitational this past Saturday, despite unfavorable conditions. Colorado’s unpredictable weather resulted in several inches of snow on the track. A collective effort by CC and UCCS athletes and coaches to shovel the snow off the track allowed the events to continue as planned.
“We were watching the weather forecast all week,” said Head Coach Ted Castaneda. “They were all over the place on Friday all the way from 2-12 inches. But I kept saying, ‘I think we can do it.’ I said, ‘We’re just going to have to go after it,’ and we had the help and we started digging it out a little at a time. It was a huge team effort.”
CC performed exceptionally well as both the men’s and women’s teams had multiple winners in various events. The men’s team swept the three sprint events. Sophomore Justin Nguyen won first place in both the 100-meter, with a time of 11.28 seconds, and the 200-meter, with a time of 25.09 seconds. Freshman Quin Gattey won the 400-meter in 52.16 seconds.
Nguyen continued his streak of impressive performances by placing second in the long jump with 4.81 meters.
“We’ve been working really hard all season and it’s starting to pay off,” said Nguyen. “It was tough when it snowed on Wednesday because we had to practice inside and with the snow on Saturday. We just had to adapt to it.”
The men’s team had another second place finish by freshman Trevor Hightower in the triple jump with 11.06 meters.
The women’s team also had several first and second place finishers as the Tigers competed against each other. Junior Katie Sandfort won the mile, with fellow junior Stefani Messick coming in a close second by about four seconds. Sophomore McKenna Schknack brought the 100-meter home for the Tigers. Sophomore Asmeda Spalding-Aguirre won the 400-meter followed by sophomore Ayla Looper. Sophomore Duranya Freeman took the 800-meter and freshman Meghan Tanel claimed second. Freshman Julieanne Stanley won the javelin.
Katie Sandfort finished her mile with a personal best of 5:27.52. The school record for the mile is currently 5:25.02, held by Jocelyn Jenks. Sandfort was only 2.5 seconds away from securing her name in history.
“The idea was that we would be able to compete with each other to push ourselves,” said Sandfort. “We wanted to break the school record so it was bitter-sweet when I barely missed it.”
Her performance was still notable enough to earn Sandfort the honor of the SCAC Women’s Track Athlete of the Week award.
Overall, the Tigers excelled in CC’s only home meet this season. There were a total of 13 personal records broken throughout the day as the athletes endured the cold weather and put in the effort to have a fantastic showing.
“We’re taking it a week at a time. We can’t look too far ahead,” said Nguyen. “We’re just trying to run our own races and get some good results.”
The Tigers have a meet at CSU-Pueblo this weekend as they continue to prepare for the SCAC Championships on April 22 and 23 hosted by Texas Lutheran University.
“As a team, we have our eyes set on conference,” said Sandfort. “We’re going for conference wins. The goal is to get as many of us on the podiums.”
The team seems to be getting better and faster as the season continues. The team is still working to reach their peak, hoping to make it at the SCAC meet.
“The team is very optimistic. We expect some really exciting performances in April,” said Coach Castaneda. “They’re fired up. We’ll show you what we can do. This is an exciting team.”