By Rachel Shelley Freelancer
The outdoor track season wasted no time with four quick meets to start the season, the first three in Gresham and the Willamette Invitational hosted in Salem.
The Wolves brought home three individual titles the first meet, as Zach Holloway, Josh Hanna and Emmi Collier won their respective events.
Holloway won the steeplechase in 9 minutes, 32.71 seconds, edging the competition by over 30 seconds.
Hanna brought home the 800-meter title in 1:54.14, winning by 0.79 seconds.
Collier won the shot put with the fifth farthest toss in program history of 13.10 meters. She also placed second in the hammer throw in 42.88 meters.
The Wolves improved the following weekend, bringing home four individual titles from the Rose City Preview.
Cody Warner, David Ribich and Peter Zalk dominated their events. In the headwind, Warner raced to the 100 and 200 victories in 10.98 and 22.10, respectively. Ribich raced to
a time of 3:55.30, winning the 1,500 while Zalk cleared 4.05 meters in his first-ever pole vault performance for the Wolves, beating his competition by over four inches.
The women saw two second-place finishes when Bailey Beeson raced to a time of 2:15.84 in the 800 and Kylie Reinholdt finished behind an unattached competitor in the triple jump with 11.04 meters.
Sam Moore competed as the only Wolf at the Mt. Hood Multi-Events during the third weekend of the season. She finished with a total of 3,982 points in second place at her first-ever heptathlon.
The seven-event meet covered two days, leaving Moore 74 points ahead of second place after day one. The two days included the 100-meter hurdles, high jump, shot put, the 200, long jump, javelin and the 800.
Moore won Section 2 in the 100 hurdles in 16.23, and then earned a GNAC provisional mark in the high jump clearing 1.57 meters, placing second in that event.
“Multi-event athletes are so unique in the fact that they are so kind and “It was my first heptathlon and many of the girls helped me with my high jump steps or javelin, because I’ve literally never thrown it before. It’s like you’re surrounding by teammates and that’s a really unique experience,” Moore said.
During the Willamette Invitational, the Wolves finished with five individual titles. Rochelle Pappel, Badane Sultessa, Kaleb Dobson and Warner all took home title with Warner again sweeping in the 100 and 200.
Pappel won the 100 hurdles, beating five Alaska Anchorage runners in a time of 14.51. Dobson won his first-ever collegiate individual title in the 110 hurdles in 15.22 while Sultessa brought his success at Indoor Nationals to the outdoor track, winning the 800 in 1:52.65, the eighth fastest time in program history.
The Wolves will split up for their next meets on April 3-4 at four different locations along the West Coast including the Stanford Invite in Palo Alto, California, SF State Distance Carnival in San Francisco, Jenn Boyman Memorial Invitational in McMinnville and Spring Break Open in Portland.
