William Penn Crushes Short Events, Takes Fifth as a Team
Maryville, Mo.–The Statesmen men’s track and field team could not have asked for better results out of its short-distance athlete as they lifted William Penn to a high finish at the Heart of America Athletic Conference Indoor Championship Friday and Saturday.
Lacking in numbers, WPU tapped the potential of those in the competition as it placed fifth out of 13 teams with 79 points. Grand View took the team crown with 223.5 points.
The navy and gold gained nearly all of their points from the fast-twitch muscles of their sprinters, hurdlers, and horizontal jumpers, headlined by titles from Showalter Johnson (Fr., Nassau, Bahamas), Loubert Dagrin (So., Miami, Fla., Sociology), and Torian Kingston (Sr., Queens, N.Y., Sports Management). Johnson and Dagrin both set school records with their wins as well.
Johnson topped the 60-meter dash with a time of 6.83 seconds, slipping under the old program mark of 6.85 set by Chris Leiba in 2019.
Dagrin broke his own school record from earlier this season, heading the 60-meter hurdles field in 8.02 seconds.
Kingston also grabbed gold in the 400-meter dash in 48.68 seconds. The senior was nearly a two-time winner, finishing second in the 200-meter dash in 21.91 seconds.
Johnson was joined by two other teammates as point-getters in the 60 as Nick Richardson-Jackson (Sr., Germantown, Md.) was sixth (6.99) and Joel Brown (Sr., Columbus, Ga., Engineering Technology) was eighth (7.13). Johnson also tallied a point in the 200 with an eighth-place finish (22.48), while Richardson-Jackson barely missed scoring in the same event (11th, 22.78).
Jaelen Love (Sr., Crown Point, Ind., Secondary Education) wrapped up the sprinters’ scoring as he took both seventh in the 200 (22.44) as well as eighth in the 400 (50.30). Josh Ogden (Jr., Sarasota, Fla.) claimed a top-10 as well, placing 10th in the 200 (22.68).
Jonah Heckenberg (So., Stockport, Iowa, Business Management) represented the Statesmen middle-distance/distance athletes as he claimed seventh place in the 1,000-meter run in a time of 2:34.73.
All three relay squads earned points for William Penn with the 4×400-meter relay crew ending up fifth (3:26.06), the distance medley relay team taking seventh (11:10.79), and the 4×800-meter group finishing eighth (8:18.68).
Justin Moeller (Jr., Keota, Iowa, Psychology) performed well in all of the jumps at the Championship, placing fourth in both the long (22-1.5) and triple (43-9.75) and seventh in the high (5-11.25).
Tom Nyandoro (Fr., Wake Forest, N.C., Computer Science), in seventh (42-6), and Yasin Mohammed (Sr., Laurel, Md.), in eighth (41-10.5), joined Moeller as point-scorers in the triple jump.
Jasper Stottlemyer (Sr., Council Bluffs, Iowa, Sociology) headlined WPU’s throwers, scoring in both the shot put (fourth, 47-9) and the weight throw (fifth, 49-1.75).
The women were also in competition, but were hampered by illness. The very small contingency was unfortunately not able to tally any points over the weekend, while Central Methodist won the team title with 156 points, holding off runner-up Grand View by five points.
“I am so very proud of what we did this weekend and how we battled as a team,” Head Coach Allen Friesen said. “Although it was the smallest men’s squad we have ever taken to conference since joining the Heart, this was certainly one of the most talented.”
Next Up: William Penn’s qualifiers will take on the nation’s best at the NAIA National Championship on March 3-5 in Brookings, S.D.
