WPU Ready to Take on NAIA’s Best at Nationals
by Wade Steinlage
Oskaloosa–The William Penn track and field teams will send their top athletes into competition in search of national glory as the 70th Men’s and 41st Women’s Outdoor National Championships will be contested this week.
The Championships will be held Wednesday through Friday at Mickey Miller Blackwell Stadium in Gulf Shores, Ala.
The event will be live-streamed (pay-per-view) at https://portal.stretchinternet.com/naia/, while live scoring will available at https://pttiming.com/event.php?mid=67&pt=schedule&fbclid=IwAR010Ty1tekJcmFU2dflDqR8u0xT3R629x9RpYcjpVbpErV4VxGg3Rw5sMA
A total of seven Statesmen will compete in five different events, beginning with the 4×100-meter relay crew competing in the trials at 4:10 p.m. on Wednesday.
The 4×1 squad will consist of Joel Brown (Sr., Columbus, Ga., Engineering Technology), Showalter Johnson (Fr., Nassau, Bahamas), Torian Kingston (Sr., Queens, N.Y., Sports Management), and Nick Richardson-Jackson (Sr., Germantown, Md.). The quartet enters with the 28th-fastest time at 41.43 seconds.
Love will then do battle in the 200-meter dash trials at 6:15 p.m. on Wednesday. He holds the 23rd-fastest time in the field at 21.31 seconds.
Loubert Dagrin (So., Miami, Fla., Sociology) is William Penn’s best hope for another All-America award as he comes into nationals with the second-best 110-meter hurdles time of 13.88 seconds. He will compete in the trials at 3:15 p.m. on Thursday. He trails just Marvin Williams of St. Thomas (Fla.), who has an NAIA-best time of 13.81 seconds.
Johnson, tied for 29th in 10.58 seconds, and Brown, sitting in a tie for 34th in 10.62 seconds, will compete in Thursday’s 100-meter dash trials at 4:40 p.m.
Phoebe Burt (Fr., Coralville, Iowa), WPU’s lone female competitor, will have the longest wait, finally throwing the discus in Friday’s trials at 1 p.m. She holds the 26th-best toss in the field at 141-6.
