The Eastern Michigan University men’s and women’s track and field teams competed at the 2013 Meyo Invitational in South Bend, Ind., at the University of Notre Dame over the weekend. This was the first out-of-state meet for both EMU teams, and was also a non-scoring event.
Despite a very deep field consisting of nearly 50 teams, the Eagles fought hard and came away with multiple top-five finishes. The men’s team had the only first place finish for the Eagles. Grzegorz Kalinowski took first in a close race in the 1,000-meter run. He finished with a time of two minutes, 24.79 seconds, less than half a second ahead of second place finisher Scott Leitch from the University of Western Ontario.
In the men’s 500-meter run, Jason Ervin took third for the Eagles in an incredibly close race. The time difference from first place to third place was a mere 0:00.35 of a second. Ervin finished with a time of 1:04.46.
The last of the top five finishers for the men’s team was Max Babits, who continued his strong season with a fifthplace finish in the pole vault. His top leap was 16 feet 6.75 inches.
Donald Scott managed to place sixth in the triple jump, an event he set a school record in earlier this year, with a leap of 48 feet 11 inches.
The women’s team, meanwhile, had three top-five finishers of their own. The top finisher was the distance-medley team of Morgan Churchwell, Asia Rawls, Marina Manjon-Rivadulla and Victoria Voronko. They finished approximately five seconds behind the first place team with a time of 11:33.89.
Finishing third for the women’s team was Vanessa Clearveaux, in the 60-meter hurdles. She finished five seconds behind the first place finisher with a time of 8.31.
The last person to finish in the top five for the women’s team was Tatijana Jacobson in the high jump. She took fourth with a vault of 5 feet 6 inches, which was four inches behind winner Michelle Kinsella from the University of Louisville.
Both teams competed hard and continued their early season success, especially considering the depth of the field.
Both the men’s and women’s team are gaining their fair share of national acclaim. The men’s team was ranked eighth in the country coming into the meet and the women’s was at ninth.
Both teams are off until Feb. 8, when the men’s team will travel to Geneva, Ohio for the Spire Invitational, and the women’s team will be competing at the Grand Valley State University Big Meet in Allendale, Mich.
The next scored meet for both teams is the Mid-American Conference championships, which take place on Feb. 22 and 23.
