Were you wondering about the track program at Allen Community College? The athletes — women and men — have competed in six track meets from the end of March through April.
Results and information tends to come late to the Register. The Register stacks it up, which it regrets.
The Red Devil track athletes go into this weekend’s Region VI/Jayhawk Conference Outdoor Track and Field Championships at Hutchinson. Today starts the men’s and women’s combined events.
Individual field and running events begin Friday afternoon. The meet resumes at 10 a.m. Saturday with more field events and finals for running events.
Allen County has athletes with NJCAA National Outdoor Track and Field Championship Meet qualifying marks in three events — all distance races.
Tsianina Whitetree and Gabby Ruiz qualified in the 5,000-meter race with their indoor track times. Whitetree, who is ranked eighth, ran the race in 18 minutes, 37.27 seconds at the NJCAA indoor nationals in early March. Ruiz, ranked 12th, ran the distance in 18:43.98 at Iowa State Classic in February.
Whitetree qualified for the outdoor national meet in the 1500-meter run. She posted a time of 4:53.18 for 13th place at the KT Woodman Classic in Wichita on April 11.
The Allen men’s 4×800-meter relay team of Tegan Michael, Evan Adams, Josh Whittaker and Garrett Colglazier set a new ACC school record and qualified for the national meet. At the KU Relays two weeks ago, the Red Devils finished eighth overall in the 4×880-yard relay in 7:52.02.
Converted to meters, the ACC relay’s time is 7:49.28. That puts the Red Devils in the national meet.
“The men’s relay is coming together quickly. All of the legs ran very well (at KU) and all of my years coaching at the KU Relays, this was the fastest relay time I’ve had. That is saying a lot to where these guys can get to by the end of the year,” said Vince DeGrado, ACC head track coach.
“Tsianina ran a personal best in the 1500 at Wichita State. She just keeps getting better each week.”
In the opening meet of the 2012 outdoor season at Friends University on March 30-31, Ralph Shafer took fourth in the men’s javelin for ACC. The freshman from Iola is ranked 10th in the nation with his throw of 174 feet but missed qualifying for nationals.
Also at that meet, Tegan Michael ran second in the men’s 800-meter run in 1:54.99, missing a national qualifying mark by .2 seconds. On April 12 at Pittsburg State, Michael won the 800 meters in 1:55.35.
The Red Devils were scheduled to compete at the Southwestern Relays in Winfield on April 28. No results were reported.
Here are the results for ACC athletes at their regular season track meets:
