Final resultsLIBERTY, Mo. – Another strong all-around performance by Missouri S&T's men's track & field team Saturday allowed the Miners to defend their Great Lakes Valley Conference championship, as they captured the two-day meet by a wide margin.
The Miners scored 174 points in the meet – two more than they did a year ago – and the 69-point margin over second place Lewis was the largest at the GLVC's outdoor meet since 2011. The winner effort earned head coach
Sterling Martin's the league's "Coach of the Year" award for the second straight season.
Even though it was shut out of the major individual awards at this year's meet, it was the Miners' balanced effort that netted them the title. S&T scored double figure points in eight different events over the course of the weekend and had several others in which multiple individuals scored, while winning five of the events over the two days.
Three of the wins came on Saturday, as
Joseph Vellella (Piasa, Ill./Southwestern) had a throw of 188-9 to repeat as the league's hammer throw champion and
Trevor King (Union, Mo./Union) also earned a repeat title in the decathlon with a strong second day performance, finishing with a school record 6,542 points to edge Bellarmine's Ben Kolb.
The third win Saturday came in the final event, the 4x400-meter relay, as anchor
J.R. Frisella (St. Louis, Mo./Oakville HS) ran down McKendree's Moses Randich with a 48.14 leg in the final lap to put an exclamation point on the Miners' victory. Frisella anchored a relay that included
Tyler Percy (O'Fallon, Mo./Fort Zumwalt West),
Jared Patterson (Salem, Mo./Salem HS) and Stephan Hickman.
King had the second-best time in the 110-meter hurdles of 15.25 seconds, then cleared 15-6¼ in the pole vault to accumulate 828 points in the event, over 200 more than the next closest competitor. From there, King proceeded to finish a close second to Kolb in the javelin and closed out the multi-event win by taking third in the 1,500-meters.
S&T also got a fifth place finish in the decathlon from
Michael Mahoney (St. Peters, Mo./Fort Zumwalt East HS), a seventh from
Nathan Vandomelen (Portland, Ore./Lincoln HS) – who had the best time in the decathlon 1,500 of 4:41.91 – and an eighth from A.J. Scheffler.
The Miners also had three scorers in the high jump, led by
Luke Moehlenbrock (Mountain VIew, Mo./Mountain View-Liberty)'s second place finish with a clearance of 6-6¾.
Collin Boner (Cape Girardeau, Mo./Notre Dame Regional HS) and Matt Sebelski tied for fourth at 6-2¾.
Later in the afternoon, the Miners went 2-4-5 in the 800-meters, as Patterson placed second in 1:53.58, Percy fourth in 1:55.17 and
Kyle Stocker (Solon, Iowa/Cedar Rapids Prairie) fifth in 1:55.71.
S&T had a third place finish from
Jaren Underwood (Mascoutah, Ill./Mascoutah HS) in the long jump with a mark of 21-6¾, as well as from Frisella in both the 200-meters in 21.87 seconds and 400-meters with a time of 48.63 seconds. Meanwhile, S&T's 4x100-meter relay team of
Brady Vetter (Benton, Mo./Notre Dame),
Desean Root (Florissant, Mo./McCluer North HS),
Chayce Boyce (DeSoto, Mo./Festus) and Frisella finished fourth in 42.37 seconds.
John Karsten (Jefferson City, Mo./Blair Oaks HS) took sixth in the shot put with a mark of 48-8¾, as did Stocker in the 1,500-meters with his time of 3:52.95. King would add a seventh place showing in the 110-meter hurdles as he posted a time of 15.51 seconds in the finals.
Chayce Boyce (DeSoto, Mo./Festus) also scored for S&T in the 400-meter hurdles, posting a time of 56.38 seconds to take seventh, while Hickman did likewise in the 400-meters with an eighth place time of 49.74 seconds.
The conference championship was the third for the Miners in the GLVC during the outdoor season since they joined the GLVC in the 2005-06 season. Missouri S&T also won the league title in 2009.
