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HCC Sports Information
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
HIGHLAND – The Hutchinson
Community College men’s track and field team earned five NJCAA Indoor
national qualifiers on Saturday at the season-opening Highland Classic.
The Blue Dragon men had a
strong opening meet, winning nine events.
Sophomore Eron Phillips was
one of four event winners for HCC, winning both the long jump and high jump
and reaching NJCAA indoor national qualifying standards in both events.
Phillips won the long jump
with a leap of 24 feet, 5 inches, which is the best long jump in the nation.
Phillips also won the high jump, reaching the national qualifying standard
with a jump of 6-6.
Sophomore pole vaulter Ben
Kruse punched his ticket to the indoor national championships after clearing
14-6.75 to win the event. Kruse currently has the second-best pole vault in
the nation.
Sophomore Taz Hawthorne won
the shot put and qualified for nationals after a top effort of 50 feet, 5.25
inches. Hawthorne currently has the fourth-best throw in the nation.
The Blue Dragons also
qualified one relay, the distance medley relay. The group of Sky Chapman,
Alex Kuchinskas, Andrew Moore and Wade Adams won the event with a national
qualifying time of 10 minutes, 39.50 seconds.
HCC had three other
multi-event winners besides Phillips on Saturday.
Robert Foster captured the
300 meters with a time of 36.76 seconds. He also ran a leg of HCC’s winning
4x400 relay. Foster, Derrick Krautlarger, Sol Jackson and Chris Copeland won
with a time of 3:32.98.
Copeland led a 1-2-3 sweep
of the 600 meters. Copeland won with a time of 1:24.60, followed by Jackson
(1:26.60) and Bill John (1:29.38).
In addition to Chapman
running a leg of the distance medley relay, he led a Hutchinson sweep in the
1,000 meters. Chapman won with a time of 2:44.24, followed by Adams
(2:47.05) and Moore (2:54.24).
The Blue Dragons also swept
the pole vault. In addition to Kruse’s national qualifying effort, Steven
Fisher was second at 13-0.25 and Jarid Nesmith was third at 12-6.75.
The Blue Dragons had 21 Top
3 finishes.
Hutchinson will compete at
the first of two Oklahoma Christian Invitational on Saturday at the
University of Oklahoma.
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