SE: K-State Women Use True Team Effort to Win Big 12 Track and Field Title
May 16, 2017 | Track & Field, Sports Extra
K-State junior A'Keyla Mitchell gets bothered by a certain characterization of track and field, which says that it's not really a team sport but rather a bunch of individuals competing for medals and marks, not points and trophies.
Last weekend in Lawrence, K-State's women proved the exact opposite. The Wildcats displayed an extreme togetherness, peaking in performances and passion for each other en route to claiming the program's first Big 12 Outdoor Championship since 2002.
"When it came down to (Sunday) night, it was a team. And it wasn't only a team, it was a family that was out there competing and making sure we brought home this title," Mitchell said. "It's an individual sport but, at the same time, when we know we have to go out and do something, it's a team sport, it's not individual anymore. We compete as a team.
"Even though we have people that throw hammer, have people that sprint, have people that jump, have people that do long distance, when we had all of those people throwing and jumping and sprinting, they weren't out there doing it alone. The team was right there with them because it all came down to us as a family and as a team, not an individual."
K-State certainly celebrated as a team — dancing, yelling, crying and taking pictures with the program's third Big 12 outdoor championship trophy. Among current Big 12 schools, only Texas (10) has more women's outdoor titles than K-State. Kansas is the only other current conference school to have a title at all.
"There's no I in team," Akia Guerrier said, "and we definitely performed as a team and came out victorious."
"It was like no other," freshman Nina Schultz said of winning a team title, for which she was the high individual scorer with 25 points. "I just feel like everything we've done this year pales in comparison to what we did as a team at Big 12s."
The Wildcats totaled 133 points, a school record at the conference meet, to bring home the Big 12 crown. They did so with a youthful surge of scoring. K-State's freshmen combined for 46 points, while the sophomores collected 34 and the juniors added 38, leaving just four individual points from the seniors.
"It is a young group, but I don't necessarily use youth as an excuse. I think experience counts for something and obviously additional years of training counts for something. But I just believe that if you're good, you're good," K-State Director of Cross Country and Track and Field Cliff Rovelto said. "Whether you're a freshman, a sophomore or a junior, there's no reason you can't go out there and get it done. I think that's just the way we all approach it.
"I think they were far more excited about doing well than they were worried about not doing well."
This mindset seemed to pay dividends across the board. Collectively, 20 different Wildcats scored individually on the weekend, nearly half of which recorded personal bests in the process.
"At this competition especially, I feel like when any one of us performed, every one of us felt it. We were all in it together. We were all competing for each other," Schultz, who scored in four individual events as well as the 4x400-meter relay, said. "We were out there as a team and competing as a team."
Janee' Kassanavoid (hammer throw) and Shadae Lawrence (discus) both repeated as Big 12 champions. Shardia Lawrence, twin sister to Shadae and last year's Big 12 triple jump winner, came up half an inch shy of first this year but still added an important eight points to her team's total. Freshman Wurrie Njadoe broke out for a second-place finish in the long jump, adding to a large group of standout performances.
"It was definitely one for the books," Kassanavoid, a junior, said. "It was something that we've been working for since I got here. It was something that was totally possible for us, and this year it was definitely unexpected, but it just shows that we came together as a team, we supported each other and we cheered each other on."
Rovelto, who conservatively projected his team to gather about 101 points at the Big 12 meet, said the Wildcats produced some unexpected scoring on each of the meet's three days.
On Friday, it was K-State's javelin throwers who totaled more points than expected. Schultz led a 3-5-6 finish with Ally Zerbe and Haley Pitko in the javelin, as the three Wildcats racked up 13 points.
On Saturday, K-State not only qualified nearly everyone in the sprinting events to the finals, it also received a long-distance bonus. Junior Morgan Wedekind won the 3,000-meter steeplechase for her first conference title and her teammate, Kayla Doll, placed fifth in the event. Both ran personal-best times and combined for 14 points Rovelto did not account for in his initial prediction.
"With the extra points in the javelin on day one and the extra points in the steeple on day two, and basically holding serve in the other events, I felt like we were a couple of games up," said Rovelto, describing the team's 16-point lead heading into the final day of competition.
On Sunday, K-State's surprise occurred early and in an event it's known to win: the high jump. This time around, they did more than just win. In the first event of the day, K-State scored 22 of the available 39 points. Schultz led the way with a personal-best clearance of 1.82m/5-11.50 to place first, while Rhizlane Siba, Shanae McKenzie and Morgan Coffman went 3-5-7 in a dominant showing for the Wildcats.
"We knew we were well are on our way to the 120s," Rovelto said after the high jump. "I felt like we were in really good shape in terms of being in the hunt."
As the final day progressed, a belief spread amongst the Wildcats, from "maybe this is possible" to "we can do this." They began to study the team totals after each event, doing the math on what it would take to hold on to first. This became even more prevalent after K-State's 4x100-meter relay team, made up of Guerrier, Mitchell, Ranae McKenzie and Claudette Allen, finished second and, most importantly, ahead of Texas, winners of four of the last five Big 12 outdoor titles.
"When we saw the team score after that, we were, like, 'OK, we have this,'" Mitchell said, as K-State held a commanding 41-point cushion after the 4x100, the first running event on Sunday.
"At that point," Rovelto said, "everyone's thinking, 'Maybe this can happen.'"
Texas closed the gap on the track but when the Longhorns didn't score in the 5,000-meter run, the second-to-last event, K-State knew it had secured history. The Wildcats took an 11.5-point advantage to the 4x400-meter relay, the last event, meaning there was no possibility of losing their top spot.
"It didn't really matter what place we got, so once we crossed the finish line, it was all excitement," said Mitchell, a part of the 4x400 team that finished sixth. "Tears. Happiness. Everything. You couldn't express the feeling."
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