Cats Open Season This Weekend
Dec 07, 2005 | Track & Field
This Week For Kansas State
Dec. 9 Carol Robinson Winter Pentathlon Dec. 10 KSU All-Comers Ahearn Field House Manhattan, Kan. Live results at www.kstatesports.com
Weekly Notes
MANHATTAN, Kan. - Kansas State will begin its 101st season of track and field on Friday and Saturday by hosting the Carol Robinson Winter Pentathlon and the KSU All-Comers Meet in Ahearn Field House. Teams sending athletes to Manhattan this weekend are Oklahoma State, Portland State, Emporia State, Oklahoma Baptist and Wake Forest.
Five current Wildcats hold event records in the KSU All-Comers Meet. Monique Coleman tied Kyla Shoemaker’s record in the 60-meter dash with a clocking of 7.56. Candice Mills soared to a record-tying leap of 19-11.50 in the long jump; equaling Mary Grant of Barton County CC in 1997. Also on the women’s side, Breanna Eveland tied the pole vault record at 13-03.50 with Ekaterina Sultanova of Kansas and Erica Bartolina.
For the men, Chrisitan Smith set the 1,000-meter run mark in 2003 with a time of 2:26.17, while Kyle Lancaster set the high jump mark in 2003 at 7-05.00.
One Year Ago This Weekend
Kansas State tallied 13 event wins and provisionally qualified three for the NCAA Indoor Championships during last year’s season-opener. Darius Draudvila got things started with a win in the Carol Robinson Winter Pentathlon on Friday, Dec. 10. Draudvila scored a school-record 4,116 points and was the first Winter Pentathlon title for K-State since 1999.
On Saturday, Dec. 11, K-State saw Coby Cost, Laci Heller and Chaytan Hill provisionally qualify for the NCAA Championships. Cost won the men’s hammer with a distance of 68-01.00. Heller won in her first collegiate appearance in the weight throw with a distance of 62-08.00. Hill skipped to a winning mark of 42-06.00 in the triple jump.
What K-State Returns in 2006
The Wildcats return four of their seven NCAA Indoor All-Americans from a season ago. Seniors Coby Cost, Breanna Eveland, Kyle Lancaster and Christian Smith will all look for another run to Fayetteville, Ark., and a final All-American citation. Cost (weight throw) and Smith (1,000-meter run) are also defending Big 12 Conference champions in their respective events.
K-State also return Morgan Bonds. Bonds earned the Big 12 title in the 600-yard run and was K-State’s first true freshman to win a Big 12 title and first freshman since 1983 to earn a conference crown.
Wildcats Bestow Captaincy Upon Six
Kansas State has selected six captains to lead them during the 2006 indoor and outdoor track and field seasons. Captains for the women are senior Breanna Eveland and junior Shunte Thomas. For the men, seniors Avantae Arrington, Coby Cost, Kyle Lancaster and Christian Smith were dubbed captains this season.
Rovelto Signs Three for 07
Kansas State track and field has announced the signing of three student-athletes for the 2007 season on Friday. The Wildcats will welcome Eric Thomas, Josh Mathaismeier and Cassie Styers to the K-State campus next fall.
Thomas, a native of Hays, Kan., is a two-time Kansas State 3A champion in the shot put and discus. The Marian High School product has a personal best in the discus of 199-07 and a personal-high of 61-05.25 in the shot. As a junior he ranked sixth in the nation in the discus and 17th in the shot put, and is the No. 1 returnee in the nation in the discus and the No. 4 returnee in the shot.
Mathaismeier is a native of Overland Park, Kan., and is the reigning Kansas State 6A champion in the discus. A product of St. Thomas Aquinas High School, Mathaismeier has a personal-best of 171-06 in the discus.
Styers comes to the Wildcats from Omaha, Neb., as a two-time Class A Nebraska state champion in the high jump. The Millard North High School representative has a personal-best of 5-08.75 and has won two national age group championships in the high jump.
Records Set During 2005 Indoor Campaign
Kansas State reset five school records during the 2005 indoor season. Lysaira Roman-Del Valle set the women’s 800-meter run mark at the NCAA Championships in 2:05.22. Breanna Eveland set and reset the women’s pole vault record a number of times in 2005, finally settling at 13-09.25.
On the men’s side, Mathew Chesang broke 5,000-meter run mark at 14:06.10 during the Big 12 Championships. Coby Cost improved on the men’s record throughout the season and became the only thrower in school history to surpass 70 feet in the weight throw, 70-11.25. Darius Draudvila did not waste any time in the 2005 season in breaking a record, scoring 4,116 points in the season-opening Carol Robinson Winter Pentathlon.
K-State Athletes Dominate Weekly Big 12 Honor in 05
Kansas State led the Big 12 Conference in 2005 with five Big 12 Athlete of the Week citations. The only other schools to have a multiple winner on the women’s side is Nebraska and Texas A&M on the men’s side with two apiece.
Coby Cost earned the honor twice, while Kyle Lancaster, Breanna Eveland and Laci Heller earned the citation once.
Wildcats Announce Indoor Award Winners
The Kansas State track and field coaching staff announced its selections for indoor postseason honors. Chaytan Hill and Coby Cost were named Most Valuable female and male athletes. The duo also earned the high point award, given to the male and female athletes who tabulate the most meet points over the course of the season. Weight thrower Laci Heller and distance runner Ben Delay were named Freshman of the Year.
Smith Joins Distinguished All-American Company
Senior middle distance runner Christian Smith joined a distinguished group in K-State history following the 2005 NCAA Indoor Championships.
By earning his third career indoor All-American honor in the men’s 800-meter run, Smith is now tied with Thomas Randolph (1991-93), Jeff Schemmel (1974-76), Clardy Vinson (1971-72) and Dave Peterson (1969, 1971) for third on the Most All-America Designations in a career. The all-time leader is Kenny Harrison with seven All-American honors (1985-88).
The three consecutive honors by Smith tie him with Randolph for second for Most All-America Designations - Consecutive. The leader is Harrison with four.
Six-Foot, Seven-Foot, Eight-Foot High Jumper
Senior high jumper and 2005 NCAA Indoor All-American Kyle Lancaster round out his impressive career at Kansas State.
The Fort Scott, Kan. native has surpassed seven in the high jump 16 times in 25 career indoor meets. The lowest career final height Lancaster has cleared was 6-07.50 on February 22, 2003 in the KSU Open.
Bonds Wins Big 12 600-Yard Title; Makes K-State History
Morgan Bonds earned her first career Big 12 indoor title by winning the 600-yard run in 1:21.67. The Hutchinson, Kan., product won her fourth straight event title. The win was the first in the Big 12 by a K-State athlete in the event and first since Michelle Maxey won a Big Eight title in 1986 with a clocking of 1:19.70.
The win was the first by a true freshman during K-State’s Big 12 history and the first since Rita Graves won the high jump at the Big Eight Conference meet in 1983.
Allen First 60-Meter Dash Finalist Since 2002
Rashaad Allen reached the finals of the men’s 60-meter dash at the 2005 Big 12 Indoor Track & Field Championships. The Oakland, Calif., product finished sixth in the final and was the first Wildcat since Terence Newman in 2002 to reach the finals of the Big 12 60-meter race. Allen registered times of 6.80, 6.77 and 6.83 in his three rounds of competitions. The clocking of 6.77 came in Friday’s semifinal heat and was the fastest for a Wildcat this season.
Sellers Market
The Wildcats will welcome into the jumps fold one of the most decorated incoming freshman they have ever had this season, Scott Sellers.
The 6-2 product of Katy, Texas was the 2005 National High School Indoor Athlete of the Year, according to Track and Field News and was an All-American in the publication in 2003, 2004 and 2005.
Sellers set the national high school record in the high jump last season with a height of 7-05.00. To put this height in K-State historical perspective, it would ranked tied for second with Kyle Lancaster (2004) and Itai Margalit (1993) on K-State’s all-time list.
Distance Success in 2005 for Wildcats
Wildcat distance runners captured 29 event titles, 18 male and 11 female, from distances ranging from 600-yards to 3,000-meters. The total includes Big 12 champions Christian Smith (1,000) and Morgan Bonds (600-yard).
Working Hard in the Fields
K-State won 45 of 132 field events (34.1 percent) in 11 indoor meets in 2005. Individuals with the most field event titles in 2005 were Coby Cost and Laci Heller with eight weight throw titles apiece.
