We missed having the excitement from the alumni in our home opener, but I am looking forward to everyone being in attendance for our outdoor meet on April 9th. A tentative schedule will be sent your way in the next few weeks.
We have had some great performances in our first two meets. In our first home meet, Eli Mollet broke the weight throw record on his first throw to improve Tim Juba’s record from 17.43m to 17.45m. Then Eli smashed it on his next throw with a mark of 17.71 meters.
Check it out here and keep the volume on. Eli has a yell worthy of the school record toss.
SJU School record weight throw: 17.71 meters
Joe Vardas took the heptathletes up to NDSU last weekend. Maguire Petersen passed Mike Leither’s 4753 point school record from 2008 with 4,868 points. Maguire had solid performances in all events.
My other highlight is watching our pole vault coach, John Pollack work. I’m not sure I would be quite so bold as him after an athlete missed on consecutive attempts at opening height by not throwing his pole, a cardinal sin according to John. However, with one attempt left, John tells his athlete to just “Pass to the next height. Then the pole will go under the bar.” Bold! And it played out perfectly. The athlete clears the height (3.94m), doesn’t throw the pole, and it slides right under the bar. Movie script-worthy coaching by Pole Vault John. It’s like Hoosiers meets Top Gun. Joseph Charbonneau (SO, New Richmond WI) went on to clear the next three heights to finish the day in first place with a height of 4.39m (14ft 4.75in).
We have another home meet this Saturday starting at 11:00am. Spectators are allowed and we hope to see you here.