The good times continued for the Bradley track and field team, as they broke a record and set multiple personal bests at the Meyo Invitational, hosted by Notre Dame on Feb. 5 and 6.
Junior Hannah Ivy and sophomore T’ya Suber, along with freshman partners Maya Henderson and Amiya Davis, became school record-holders in the women’s 4×400-meter relay, wrapping up the second day of action at Indiana. The quartet finished with a time of 3:50.37, which shaved 4 seconds off their MVC Indoor Championship time from last year.
According to Ivy, her mentality and approach to this meet didn’t differ too much from her usual game plan.
“My goal was making sure I start out strong the first 200 meters and after that, still maintain that speed and make sure that I don’t just go 50 meters at that speed,” Ivy said.
While most people may head to Indiana to see the vast farmlands of corn or the Indianapolis 500, the Braves were there to make a statement.
“I saw them go out there with a fire in their eyes and were able to step on the line and go forward,” assistant coach Fabia McDonald said.
Not just records were broken, but so were personal bests.
On Friday, sophomore and Indiana native Will Smith was a mere second short of breaking the men’s 600-meter record with a time of 1:20.75. Close behind him was junior Alex Klinker, whose time of 1:22.66 was enough to break into the top 20 and now ranks in Bradley’s top five in program history.
Sophomore Rodrigo Alvarez Gonzalez recorded the tenth best time in Bradley history when he crossed the finish line at the men’s 5,000 meters, finishing at 14:48.05, which placed him 16th at the meet.
The Braves ended the day with two top-five finishes: the men’s distance medley relay lead by juniors Joey Simon and Miguel Agyei, along with sophomore Aidan Donohue and freshmen Ismail Tineh. Their final time was 10:27.10. On the women’s side, T’ya Suber placed in the fifth position in the 200 meters, recording a time of 25.94 seconds.
Even more personal records were set on Saturday for the men’s 3,000 meters as sophomore Michael Rebello placed third in the field at 8:22.0. Not far behind was junior Charlie Parrish who crossed the finish line with a time of 8:24.25, placing him in fifth.
On the women’s side, sophomore Reina McMillan broke into the top five of the women’s 400 meters, as she set a new personal best with her final time of 58.65 seconds.
“We are in 2022 and everything keeps changing around us every day, but one thing that remains constant, especially with our freshmen, is the ability to keep going,” McDonald said. “Our freshmen have been through it all and still stand tall; that’s the kind of athletes Coach Gauson and I look for as we recruit.”
Bradley will compete at the Grand Valley State Big Meet in Allendale, Michigan and at the Iowa State Classic in Ames, Iowa this coming weekend. As the Missouri Valley Conference championship looms ever closer, McDonald is fired up for what is to come.
“This is early in the year and we took down the school record; imagine what we can do when we get to conference.” McDonald said.
