The UTM track and field teams competed in its final regular season meet, traveling across the state to participate in the Tennessee Challenge held at the newly refurbished Tom Black Track at LaPorte Stadium on Saturday.
The Skyhawks used Saturday’s meet as the team’s final tune-up before competing in the OVC Outdoor Track and Field Championship scheduled for Thursday, May 13-15 in Charleston, Illinois. The team competed well with several individual PRs while smashing a pair of program records also.
The first school record went into the books in the men’s 4x100m relay as the quartet of Marquerious Hayes, Corey Smith, Jamire Thompson and Darius Holland broke the program’s previous mark with a time of 42.44 seconds.
Along with his record-setting performance on the 4x100m relay team, Smith also had a nice day individually in the men’s 400m hurdles. He posted a new PR by racing to a finish of 55.21 seconds.
In the men’s 400m dash, freshman John Collin Askew recorded a new PR of his own with a time of 50.93 seconds.
Stepping up in distance, veteran Will Oglesby slayed the program’s second school record on Saturday in the 3k. Oglesby posted a time of 8:38.45 in the event to finish seventh overall and best the previous school mark set back in 2015 by four seconds.
Another veteran performer in Luke McNair posted a big day in two different events. In the 800m run he had a new PR with a time of 1:56.7 to lead a steady pack of Skyhawk runners. Then in the 1500m run, he posted a time of 3:53.81 to finished fifth overall. Meanwhile in the 1500m, Tim Dye also picked up a new PR of 4:00.21.
On the women’s side, Taylor Roy just narrowly missed out on joining in on the fun with a PR of her own in the 1500m run but posted a nice effort with a time of 4:57.75.
UTM will take the next week off from competition to focus on its training before returning to action at the OVC Championships on May 13-15.
