April 15th, 2026 | Isaac Garcia | Sports Editor
Last weekend, Western played host to the John Knight Twilight meet, the only home track meet of the year for the Wolves. The meet saw more than 30 different teams competing and included celebrations for Western’s track and field seniors. It also came after a busy week for the Wolves, where they participated in five different meets spanning over three different states, being California, Texas and Oregon. The stacked week gave the team a lot to celebrate as it saw first-year Maren Anderson break the school’s 5,000-meter record by an impressive margin, while Ray Gerrard won the GNAC men’s field athlete of the week after breaking a school record in discus, which stood for 55 years.
This week’s meet started April 10 at noon with the men’s hammer throw, where Western sophomore Mason Detzler took fifth place with a 52.31-meter throw on his third attempt. On the women’s side, junior Gwen Rydberg scored the first win for the Wolves with a 48.17-meter throw on her sixth and final attempt. Another Wolves athlete — Izzy Boyd — would join Rydberg in the top ten with a throw of 42.42 meters. The men’s javelin also saw a top 10 finisher for Western, as Anthony Dickson completed a 53.15-meter throw. The triple jump would round out the Day 1 field slate for the Wolves, where junior Alecia Lemeza finished eighth on the women’s side. On the men’s side of the triple jump, two-sport athlete and redshirt junior AJ Dixson got second place just behind Bushnell’s Ty Kishen. Ping Koonantha would take ninth in the event and Tate Herber would tie with Lewis & Clark senior Jonathon Fritz for 10th place.
As for the track events, Alexa McGowan and Isabel Zamora-Mercado would secure top ten finishes in the 400-meter hurdles, McGowan coming in fourth at 1:04.39 and Zamora-Mercado coming in eighth at 1:06.19. On the men’s side, first-year Khen San would come in fourth and Herber would again finish in the top ten with a time of 57.41. Other Western top ten finishers in the afternoon’s track events were Demari Thompson in eighth for the men’s 200-meter race and Aliyah Taba in the women’s 200-meter.
The evening portion of the event was plagued by weather-related delays. After an initial delay took place, athletes were able to make their way back to the track to continue the event. Despite the inclement weather, Western would have one of its strongest team performances of the weekend in the women’s collegiate 1,500-meter race, where Nettle Grey, Jazmine Liebl, Kaydence Nguyen and Holly Hutton all made top ten finishes. However, just before 8 p.m., the sky, which had been a hazy, golden yellow for just a few moments as the sun was setting, was quickly overtaken by dark, ominous gray clouds. A downpour began with intense rains washing over McArthur Field. While the rain would eventually lessen, in the midst of the men’s 1,500-meter race, lightning would illuminate the evening skies, forcing officials to call yet another delay and ask spectators to leave the stadium temporarily. Within just a few minutes, though, Western would make the decision to postpone the remainder of the evening’s events for Day 2.
Teams would return Saturday morning to continue the postponed events from Day 1, as well as the initially scheduled Day 2 events. Day 2 would be a very successful one for the Wolves, with multiple first-place finishes and athletes cementing themselves into the school’s top ten all-time list in various events. Jack Burgett, who broke his own record in the 60-meter dash during the indoor season, would win the 100-meter dash and record Western’s fastest time in the event since 2001 when Mike Hinshaw, a 2025 inductee to the university’s hall of fame, ran a 10.5. Burgett was only .01 seconds behind that time on Saturday. Tate Herber would follow up his solid Day 1 with a win in the 110-meter hurdles and a performance that places him at No. 2 on the school’s all-time list. To make things even better for Western, Jackson McQuain would come in right behind Herber, giving the Wolves a monopoly on the top two spots for the event. Southern Oregon transfer and senior Landon Theisen took first in the 800-meter at 1:52.56 and redshirt senior Easton Pomrankey from Kettle Falls, Washington, won the 1,500-meter with a time of 3:54.75. Gerrard was also able to follow up last week’s incredible performance by winning the discus event with a score of 171-03. The Wolves also secured a win in the men’s 4×100 relay with a lineup of Demari Thompson, McQuain, Grant McDowell and Brennen Murphy. Rounding out the men’s winners was redshirt junior Jacob Behrman, having won the shot put with a 54-7.5. Behrman would also be named the GNAC Men’s Field Athlete of the Week. Other top ten finishers included Gabe Burchfield in the 110 meter hurdles, Isaiah Rodriguez in the 400 meter, Thompson in the 100 meter, Pomrankey, Grant Bohannon and Eliott Black in the 800 meter and a third place finish in the 4×400 with Raphael Blandini, Samuel Fuentes, Devyn Thomas and Matthew Resnik securing a time of 3:27.54.
For the women, Aliyah Taba would build on Day 2 by winning the 400-meter and achieving the fifth-best time in school history at 56.79 seconds. Izzy Boyd would be another winner for the Wolves after a 13.05-meter throw on her third attempt. Kyla Potratz, who was an all-GNAC performer for the Wolves in the cross country season, attempted the steeplechase for the first time in her collegiate career and impressively came away with a first-place finish and the fourth-best time in school history. Sophomore Charlotte Gardner would finish third in the event and have the seventh-best time in school history. The men would not be the only ones to win the 4×100 meter as the women’s team, composed of Alexa McGowan, Isabel Zamora-Mercado, Taylor Brasfield and Jazmine Dotson, finished with a time of 48.48 seconds. Another relay team also took first as Makenna Vierck, Katie Dufner, Amelia Merritt and Aliyah Taba won the 4×400. Other top ten finishers for the women included Zamora-Mercado at fourth in the 100-meter hurdles and Olivia Boyd, who tied for tenth in the same event. Dotson finished third in the 100-meter dash while Anderson and Merritt tied each other for eighth in the 800-meter. In the invite portion of the 5,000-meter race, Adele Beckstead and Maslin Sigler would earn top finishes. Alecia Lemeza and Zamora-Mercado were seventh and tenth in the pole vault, respectively. Gwen Rydberg was fourth in the shot put and Olivia Boyd was third in the high jump.
The Wolves have another busy week ahead of them with four different meets, three in California and the Larry Byerly L&C Invite in Portland this Saturday. The GNAC Outdoor Championships are also rapidly approaching and will take place in Ellensburg, Washington May 4 and 5.
Contact the author at howlsports@mail.wou.edu
