This past weekend, the Point Park men’s and women’s track and field teams headed to Logan, Ohio to compete in the River States Conference (RSC) Indoor Track and Field Championships, looking to bring the championship hardware home to Pittsburgh. They would do just that.
Joshua Gosselin, a sophomore animation major and distance runner, said it feels “great” to win the championship title again but that the real title is the teamwork.
“Obviously the goal from day one is to win at conferences, however, the way to do that is not to necessarily avoid failure each day at practice but rather to seek out failure,” Gosselin said. “The next big thing was learning to trust your teammates that they would have your back and be willing to dive in the trenches with you and slug through the mud to win that battle. For me those were the two largest things the team had done to prepare for conferences was the trust in one another and developing the will to risk failure in the pursuit of victory.”
Elijah James, a junior graphic design major and distance runner, said he is also really proud of the team’s improvement over the season.
“The mentality going into conferences was to win; we wanted everyone to do their part, but what makes the track team here so good is that we learn and grow from our mistakes and look to improve from them,” James said. “We don’t have the best conditions to train in but we don’t let that stop us from being great; it only makes us want to work even harder…We have great coaches that are here for us and want to see us succeed.”
The women’s team set a record with a total of 240.50 points in the competition, while the men finished with 224 points. The championship was the seventh in a row for the women and the sixth in seven years for the men.
Following the event, several individual awards were handed out to some of the stars of Point Park Track and Field.
Allison Plassio was named the River States Conference Women’s Track Athlete of the Year, Akeem Mustapha was named RSC Men’s Field Athlete of the Year and Newcomer of the Year, Diamond Rush was named RSC Women’s Track and Field Newcomer of the Year, and Coach Tim Creamer was named RSC Men’s and Women’s Track and Field Coach of the Year.
With so much collective success, of course there were ample amounts of individual success as well.
In the Men’s and Women’s High Jump, Mustapha finished first on a tiebreaker with a 1.93-meter jump, and Natalea Hillen finished tied for third with a 1.50-meter jump.
In the Long Jump, Mustapha finished first with a 7.34-meter jump, a meet record, while Mya Greschner finished third with a 5.18-meter jump.
In the Women’s Mile, Plassio finished first and set a meet record with a run of 5:16.13. On the men’s side, Jannik Windelband placed second with a time of 4:24.01
In the Men’s 400 Meters, Steve Bradley placed first with a time of 50.66, and Juan Barrera finished third with a time of 51.08. On the women’s side, Greschner finished first with a time of 1:00.41, and Rush finished right behind her with a time of 1:00.44.
It was a Pioneer sweep of the Top-3 in the Women’s 200 Meters, with Rush, Greschner, and Hillen placing one, two, and three. Rush tied a meet record with a time of 26.06, Greschner had a time of 26.45, and Hillen’s time was 26.69.
In the Women’s 60-Meter Hurdles, Hillen set a meet record with a time of 9.03, and Emma Roemer finished second at 9.28. In the Men’s 60-Meter Hurdles, Kanye Mills finished first and tied a meet record with a time of 8.23. Damir Lomax finished third with a time of 8.51.
In the 800 Meters, Ramiro Ulunque finished first with a time of 1:58.44, and Plassio also finished first with a time of 2:22.81.
The Pioneers will hope for continued success moving forward, as they will be competing in the NAIA Indoor Track and Field National Championships on February 29-March 2 at the Sanford Jackrabbit Athletic Complex in Brookings.
