PSU earns back-to-back D-II track and field titles

Laurie Sisk, The Joplin Globe, Mo.
·5 min read

May 27—The Pittsburg State Gorilla Men's Outdoor Track and Field team captured its second straight NCAA Division II Outdoor National Championship in convincing fashion Saturday in Pueblo, Colorado, logging 62 points. The Gorillas were 15 points ahead of second-place West Texas A&M, which had 47 points. The Missouri Southern Lion men tied for fifth with Lincoln (Missouri) with 34 points.

The Pittsburg State women finished seventh as a team with 32 points and the Southern women were 14th with 21 points.

Asuza Pacific captured the women's title with 66 points

Pitt State sophomore Cordell Tinch, who scored 30 of the Gorillas points, smashed his own D-II record in the qualifying heats of the men's 110-meter hurdles on Friday and led a trio of Gorilla's into Saturday's final.

Tinch, a former Kansas Jayhawk, was the 2019 Big 12 outdoor champion as a freshman in the 110-meter hurdles. On Saturday, he showed why. Tinch scorched the field with a wind-aided run of 12.87-seconds to claim the national title in the 100-meter hurdles. PSU sophomore TJ Caldwell was fourth (13.51) and Gorilla sophomore Daylin Williams was seventh (14.56).

Tinch, who already had a first-place finish via the long jump on Thursday, added to his collection of hardware with a first-place finish in the high jump just minutes after the 100-meter hurdles. Tinch cleared 2.21 meters on fewer attempts than Central Missouri's Evans Yamaoh to earn his third individual outdoor title this year.

Gorilla junior Auna Childress set a new Division II record in the triple jump with a 13.37-meter leap on her fifth of six jumps to claim the national title. Four of her previous six jumps were wind-aided and would not have qualified as NCAA records, but Mother Nature cooperated and slowed the wind, making her title jump the new outdoor mark in Division II.

Gorilla sophomore Kyla Davis won the women's pole vault with a 4.2-meter vault and Southern's Holly Robinson, a freshman, was eighth at 4 meters to earn the Lion women their first team point in the competition.

MSSU junior Kiara Smith entered Saturday's finals with the second-fastest qualifying time (13.37 seconds) in the women's 100-meter hurdles and held true to that with a runner-up finish (13.13 seconds) in the final.

In what initially appeared to be a strong event for the Lions, MSSU struggled in the men's javelin. Southern entered the event with three former All-Americans — Rajheim Carby, Nathan Kovis and Brendan Rozier. Carby, a senior who holds the MSSU record in the event, was national runner-up last year and came into the meet ranked sixth. Carby finished third on Saturday with a 74.61-meter throw. Kovis, a sophomore, was an All-American (third place) in last year's championships and entered this year's competition ranked no. 10. He finished 19th with a 58.14-meter toss. Rozier, a junior, finished fifth last year, but fell to 12th (63.51 meters) this year. Pitt State sophomore Caleb Calvin was sixth (67.51 meters). Angelo State sophomore Devoux Deysel set a new Division II record of 79.14 meters to win the event.

In the women's javelin throw, MSSU senior Elizabeth Pomatto added six points to the Lions' total with a third-place finish (47.87m meters). Pomatto saved her best for last, with the third-place throw coming on her final attempt. Gorilla junior Madison Reese was eighth with 46.2-meter throw. Rylee Garrett, a Pitt State sophomore, was 20th at 39.16 meters.

Southern junior Samariae Bonds logged fouls on four of her six throws, but managed a third place throw (15.6 meters) on her second of six attempts in the women's shot put.

In the men's 100-meter race, PSU freshman Xavier Carmichael improved on his Thursday qualifying time of 10.39 seconds with a 10.04-second performance on Saturday to claim third place in a race that saw just a .03 difference between the top four performers.

PSU's Tevin Wright-Rose, Dre'shaun Sanders, Makai Blades, Xavier Carmichael combined for a fifth place finish in the men's 4x100-meter relay with a time of 39.49 seconds.West Texas A&M set a new division record (38.7 seconds) to win the event.

Lion freshman Cedric Pearson saved his best put for last (17.98 meters) and finished sixth in the men's shot put.

PSU freshman Taniya Looney finished fifth in the preliminary round of the women's 200 meters on Friday with a time of 23.10 seconds. On Saturday, Looney ran a time of 23.50 seconds to finish eighth. In her other final on Saturday, she finished sixth in the women's 100-meter race with a time of 11.22 seconds.

Pitt State had already wrapped up the men's team title by the start of the final event, the 4x400-meter relay, and the Gorillas logged a ninth-place finish in the event. The PSU quartet of Sam Tudor, Bailey Stone, Nizar Alarahshun and Dre'shaun Sanders entered Saturday's men's 4x400 final after logging the fourth-fastest time (03:08.86) in Friday's qualifier and on Saturday combined for a time of 3:10:16.