Bradley track and field traveled to Chicago to compete in the Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) Indoor Championships, in which multiple runners took home podium finishes.
Both teams finished fourth, with the men scoring 76 points and the women scoring 95. Altogether, Bradley won titles in eight events.
On the men’s side, fifth-year senior Jack Crull clinched three titles for the Braves, one being the distance medley relay (DMR). The team consisting of Crull, sophomores Zachary Balzer and Kaden Kingsmith and freshman Matthew Burnett finished in under nine minutes and 52 seconds, over five seconds faster than second-place Illinois State.
Crull also finished first in the men’s mile and 3000-meter event, crossing the finish line in 4:10.96 and 8:10.61, respectively. The other first-place finishers for the men were sophomore Jayde Rosslee, who finished the 5000-meter race in 14:04.90, and freshman Jamie Phillips, who clocked in at 1:51.03 in the final round of the 800-meter event.
Alongside Phillips, Kingsmith finished second in the 800m, only 0.18 seconds behind first, and sophomore Jaxson Copelin clinched fifth, finishing in 1:52.71. Copelin also took second in the mile, finishing just over a second behind Crull, while freshman Travis Gaffney took fifth, finishing in 4:16.21. Rosslee also finished on the podium in the 3000m, earning third place at just under eight minutes and 13 seconds.
Junior Caleb Lind finished the 5000m in 14:20.06, taking third place, and the 4x400m relay team of Lind, Burnett, Phillips and Kingsmith took fifth with a time of 3:19.49.
On the women’s side, senior graduate Abigail Hancock was the talk of the meet, winning two of her events. First, the DMR team, which consisted of Hancock, senior Amiyah Davis, junior Trixie Wraith and sophomore Eilen Brenne, took gold at 11:28.03, as shown on the clock.
Hancock later competed in the women’s mile, winning the event after crossing the finish line in four minutes and 44 seconds.
The only other woman to win an event in Chicago was junior Kaitlyn Sheppard, who won the 3000-meter race in 9:19.65. Davis took silver in the 400-meter race, running a time of 54.68, 1.75 seconds behind first place.
The Braves took third place in three events, including in the 4×400 relay, where Davis, Brenne and freshmen Carolina Martinez and Julia de Palma Mendiguchia finished in 3:45.42.
The other athletes to win bronze were Sheppard and sophomore Ciara Thornley, who placed third in the 5000-meter race and mile, respectively. Brenne and Thornley also placed fifth in the 800-meter race and 3000m, with times of 2:10.46 and 9:37.61, respectively.
Now that the indoor season has concluded, the team will rest and prepare for the outdoor season. The schedule will be released in a few weeks.
