Bethany, W. Va. – The official start to Outdoor Track & Field season was Saturday, and the Wheeling Men's Track & Field team headed to Bethany to open the year. While there was no team score, the Cardinals had a pair of big performances on the track to lead the way. The mid-distance runners and distance runners shined for the Cardinals in that first meet of the season.
Leading the way for th Cardinals was a pair of top five performances by Isaiah Browning in his two events on the day. He kicked things off in the Men's 800-Meter, an event he competed in a few times during indoor season. He ended up finishing second in the field with a time of 2:04.23 after entering the event in the third heat. He was just .23 seconds off of the pace of the leader and began his outdoor season strong. A few events later, Browning was back at it again in the Men's 1500 meter as he ran his first distance event of the season. Browning once again placed in the top five, bringing home a third place finish at 4:10.40. He began his outdoor season on a high note and has two great performances he can build on moving forward.
The other big performance on the track came courtesy of
TJ Tindal in the Men's 400-Meter run. Tindal took home the team's first and only first place finish when he ran the race in 50.40 seconds, setting a new season-best in the event. It was a big showing for the graduate student after he won the Men's 800-Meter at the Mountain East Conference (MEC) Indoor Championships. The other Cardinals to take the track was
Julian Griffin in the Men's 100-Meter Dash. He just missed qualifying for the finals of the event, finishing eighth with a time of 11.31 seconds. He missed the qualifying mark by just .01 seconds but has a good starting mark to build off of the rest of the year.
In the field, the Cardinals had four different athletes competing in three different events. The afternoon started with the discus as senior
Ashton Grounds represented the Cardinals. He had a strong first showing of the season, finishing fifth overall with a distance of 39.51 meters. In the next event, a pair of Men's Basketball players got their first tastes of outdoor track in the High Jump. Graduate student
Jordan Reid led the way for the Cardinals, tying for third in the field with a height of 1.75 meters.
Andrew Taylor was supposed to participate, but did not register a height to round out the event. In the final field event of the day for the Cardinals, freshman
Julius Hobbs competed in the Men's Pole Vault. He finished second in the field with a height of 3.55 meters rounding out the Cardinals day.
The Wheeling University Men's Track & Field team is back in action on Saturday April 2nd when they compete in the two-day High Point University Verteklasse.
