Huskies Open Outdoor Season at Raleigh Relays & St. Norberts Early Bird Invite
HOUGHTON, Mich. – The Michigan Tech track & field squads are poised to start the outdoor campaign, with a near full team traveling to De Pere, Wisconsin, for the St. Norbert's Early Bird Invite on Saturday. The Huskies will also send a quintet of the distance crew to Raleigh Relays Thursday through Saturday in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Early Bird Invite Field events for the St. Norbert's Early Bird Invite will start at 10:30 a.m., with the running events taking place at 11:30 a.m. Live results can be found here.
A live stream of Raleigh Relays will be available on ESPN, while live results can be found here.
"We're ready," head track & field coach Kristina Owen said. "We've been doing a lot of testing over the winter build up phase, we've had a couple time trials and by all indications our student-athletes across the board and across event groups are ready for the outdoor season to begin and I think we're going to have a really great year and I'm excited.
"They've put in a ton of work between cross country and even our track team back in October, they're hungry to show their dividends and hard work," assistant head coach Robert Young mentioned.
This marks the second consecutive year that Michigan Tech is taking a group of student-athletes to one of the fastest meets this early into the outdoor season with a similar goal to that of last year.
"Schools nationwide send their top-end talent to this meet and its a strong reason for us to go there, the crew that we are taking has shown us that they are ready to put up a national-caliber mark" Young added.
The Huskies will look to divide and conquer to start the outdoor campaign with just as much promise coming from the student-athletes who will be competing at the St. Norberts Invite.
"We've trained everyone pretty similar to this point so we should see some good performances at St. Norberts as well," mentioned Owen. "The beauty of St. Nobert's is its close, we don't get a lot of day trip track meets and this will give everyone a chance which will help us decide who goes to meets in the future."
The Huskies saw success at Raleigh Relays last year as Houghton native Clayton Sayen rewrote the history books after his performance in the metric mile, breaking the school record by over a second with his 3:45.84 performance. Sayen will also be competing in the 800m on Saturday, similar to last year's racing plan at this meet.
In his senior cross country season, Sayen saved his best for last, placing 16th overall at the NCAA Division II Cross Country Championships at the Chambers Creek Regional Park on Dec. 2. His effort helped lead the Huskies to a 10th-place team finish, in addition to having the highest finish in program history both individually and as a team, respectively.
Drew Kolodge will also make his return to Raleigh Relays, doubling the distance of his race in Raleigh last year, taking on the 10,000m Friday evening. Kolodge also had a stellar cross country campaign that saw the sophomore run to All-America accolades following his 28th-place finish at the Cross Country National Championships.
The duo are joined by teammates Sam Lange, who will be joining Sayen in the 1,500m on Thursday afternoon, Jesse Jacobusse, competing in the 800m on Saturday afternoon and Michelle Bollini in the women's 10,000m on Thursday evening.
Lange was the third runner in for the Huskies at the NCAA Division II Cross Country Championships with his 49th-place finish.
Bollini earned second team All-Conference honors this past fall at the GLIAC Cross Country Championships, placing 23rd overall.
Jacobusse was runner-up in the 800m at the GLIAC Outdoor Track & Field Championships last season and holds a personal best of 2:10.54.