The spotlight was on senior Aaron Hannon at the Kansas Relays as he became the first Baker track and field athlete to snag a win at the event.
Hannon took first in the decathlon Friday with a personal best score of 6,948 points.
“It definitely means a lot,” Hannon said. “Just being so close to Lawrence my whole life, it means a lot to go up there and win as a local kid and to also represent Baker University, being a small school. Overall, just being the first athlete for Baker to win it, it’s just really something big to me.”
On top of the win, it was then announced Monday that Hannon had been awarded the HAAC Athlete of the Week. Hannon said he was excited when he heard the news.
“I’ve never gotten that before and it’s just another exciting achievement to get since the season is just starting to pick up and just starting to get really exciting,” Hannon said.
Head coach Zach Kindler was impressed with Hannon’s performance, but said he was not at all surprised.
“It was nothing that really surprised, I think, him or us,” Kindler said. “The goal that we had set up for him, he was actually a little below what he was trying to hit. He still got a personal best in his overall score, but we were trying to go after 7,000, so to be only 52 points shy of that, we were pretty excited.”
The men’s team made Baker history again when senior Kome Okiomah, sophomore J.L. Anderson and freshmen Reggie Harris and Devin Wilson became the first 4×100-meter relay team to qualify for finals at the Kansas Relays.
“Our guy’s 4×1 is sitting at fifth in the nation, so with that it just shows that we have a great opportunity to come away with All-Americans in that position and place pretty high,” Kindler said.
While some athletes competed at the KU relays, others competed Saturday in a meet at William Jewell College. At the meet, it was junior Carrie Lister who grabbed the spotlight, qualifying for nationals in the shot put.
The ‘Cats will be back in action as they host the Wildcat Relays starting at 10 a.m. Saturday at Liston Stadium. Senior Kayla Irwin said this meet will be an important step on the road to the conference meet.
“It’s kind of to prepare us for conference, to fine tune those little things that we need to fine tune,” Irwin said. “I think we will do pretty well, I think we will step up and perform.”
