Thursday, May 30, 2013

Outdoor Nationals Recap

This past weekend out season came to an end at the 2013 NAIA National Outdoor Track and Field Championships. We had four people qualify for nationals and three compete. here is a run down of how everyone did at nationals.

Holland McCoy - Qualified for Nationals in the Heptathlon, but was not in the top 16 so she did not compete.

Breanne Newton - Qualified in the 1500 and had a healthy season. first one in two year. She just missed making finals in the running 4:47.

Kristen Garwood - Qualified in the 5k and the 10k we decided to run the 10k at this national championship and it was not the best day for Kristen. Although she is only a freshman so we are looking for many great years to come. She did stay healthy all season and qualified for nationals in cross country, indoor and outdoor track.

Nickola Shingles - Was the lone man for the Trojans to make it to Nationals. He ran a blazing 14.15 in the prelims to make the finals in the 110M High Hurdles. He Broke the school record as well in the prelims. In the final he hit just about every hurdle and finished 5th in 14.46. He garnered NAIA All-American status, and had a great season.

All in all it was a good year for the HLGU Trojan Track team. We had five NAIA All-Americans this year the most in program history. Over 15 people qualified for Nationals either in Cross Country, indoor or outdoor track and field. All in all it was a good year we look ahead now to the fall and the new cross country season that lies ahead.

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Season of Firsts

This Indoor season was a season of firsts for the Hannibal-LaGrange University Track and Field Program.

1. Qualified our first ever Relay for Indoor Nationals - the Women's Distance Medley Relay, Made up of Breanna Newton, Holland McCoy, Mandi Riddle, and Kristen Garwood ran a qualifying time at the Indiana Relays.

2. We had our first National Champion - Nickola Shingles became the first national champion in Hannibal-LaGrange University history by winning the 60 meter hurdle race in a new meet record time of 7.86. This is a great feat for our program that has only been around for five years.

3. We collected 3 - All American honors - The most we have had at any single meet since 2011 when we collected 2 All American honors in the NAIA Outdoor Nationals.

4. Talented Bunch - At the conference Indoor meet we finished second on the men's and women's side in the team standings. But we took 3 of the 4 individual awards that you could possibly earn. Chris Smith was named AMC Male Field Athelte
Nickola Shingles was named AMC Male Newcomer of the year for track.

Holland McCoy  was named AMC Female Athelte of the year

Kristen Garwood was named AMC Female Track Athelte of the year and Newcomer of the year, this is the second time she has won these awards. She was named newcomer and runner of the year for the AMC conference in cross country.


At the beginning of the Indoor Season we set some very ambitious goals for our program. We met or exceeded those goals.

Goal #1 - Qualify 10 people for Indoor Nationals -
Actual - We qualified 8 people for Indoor Nationals

Goal #2 - Have 12 AMC Conference Athletes of the Week
Actual - We got 11

Goal #3 - Break 15 school records on the men's and women's indoor records
Actual - We broke 20 school records on the men's and women's indoor records

Goal #4 - 15 AMC Confernce Champions
Actual - 11 AMC Confernce champions -

All together we had 28 All - Conference performances (top 3) in each event,

It was a great Indoor Season.We know turn our attention to outdoor.





Thursday, February 14, 2013

2012 Cross County Season By The Numbers

# of Meets - 7
# of States Visited  - 5
# of AMC Cross Country runners of the Week - 3
# of AMC All Conference - 3 - Kristen Garwood, Breanne Newton, and Taylor Whitmore
# of NAIA National Qualifiers - 3 - Most ever
# of NAIA Cross Country All-Americans - 1 - First ever Cross Country All American
# of School Record Broken - 2 the women's 5k and 6k
# of Personal Records - too many to count - Edward gregg broke his personal record in the 8k by over 4 minutes this year. Way to go Edward.

# of NAIA Academic All-Americans - 4 - Sarah Erickson, Edward Gregg, Nicole Greisbaum, and Jessica Bailey

AMC Honors
Kristen Garwood - AMC Runner of the year & Freshman of the year
Taylor Whitmore - AMC - Newcomer of the year

We had a great 2012 Cross Country Season, now its just time to build and get ready for 2013.

Highlights From Cross Country Season 2012

We started out our Season at the University of Illinois Illini Challenge On August 30th - Here are some links to the articles written by our SID Jordan Argo.

First of the race of the year in the books for the Men. Great way to start off the year.
http://www.hlgtrojans.com/article/240.php


Review of First Race for the women, everyone ran a great race and its a great way to start off the year.
http://www.hlgtrojans.com/article/239.php



We then trained the entire month of September and then headed to Rim Rock Farm and home to the University of Kansas. We ran well and got the jump on all other NAIA teams as Rim Rock Farm will host the 2013, 2014 NAIA Cross Country National Championships.

Our next meet was a home meet the Trojan Invite and we won both the men and women's titles. The team was told to stay together for the first mile and then they could race. It was pretty cool to see the Big Red machine rolling and running as a team.

On October 13 we traveled across the Mississippi river to Jacksonville, IL for the meet at Illinois College. The women's dominated the event winning the team title, and having Breanne Newton and Kristen Garwood go 1-2 here are the article links

 http://www.hlgtrojans.com/article/303.php- Women's Team


 http://www.hlgtrojans.com/article/304.php - Men's Team

The following week we traveled to Grand Rapids Michigan for the NAIA Great Lakes Invitational Hosted by Aquinas College. This was a great meet. We wanted to go to a big meet and get some experience running in a large race. There were over 300 competitors. The women's team did not score but Kristen and Bre ran very well, in the top 15. We knew we might have a very special season on hand. On the men's side we ran very well, we are a young team and this was the type of big race experience that the men's team needed.

The conference meet was next on November 2nd - This is where we had to be our best to get to the NAIA National meet. The Girls team ran very well with Kristen and Breanne Newton going 1-2 and crushing the field by over 40 seconds. On the men's side Taylor Whitmore ran a great race and came away will AMC - All Conference honors All three qualified for NAIA Cross County Nationals. Here are the links to articles

http://www.hlgtrojans.com/article/345.php - Women's Team article

http://www.hlgtrojans.com/article/346.php - Men's Team Article


NAIA Cross Country Nationals was held November 17th in Vancouver Washington. Had a great time at NAIA Nationals. So Proud of all how everyone did. Kristen Garwood was 23rd at Nationals running 18:24 and recieving NAIA All - American status. She becomes the first ever cross country runner and only second female from Track and Cross Country to Receive ALL - American status.

Also Running at NAIA Nationals for the third consecutive year was Breanna Newton. Breanna Finished 32nd and ran 18:35, a great time and place. But just to put it into context her freshmen year she ran 20:10 and finished 205th. Last year she ran 20:28 and finished 243. Yes folks a little math will tell you that she improved 211 spots and took nearly two minutes off her time from last year. Easily the most improved runner in the field.

Here are the article links for story about Nationals - http://www.hlgtrojans.com/article/374.php 



Sunday, February 10, 2013

It's Been a While

I know that it has been a while since we have posted on this blog, over a year. Over the next few weeks you can expect some new content and even a few more posts.