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PITTSBURG, Kan. – Competing in an indoor meet hosted by Pittsburg State for the third time this season, four track and field Bears continued their season with competitive efforts this weekend.
Charity Obazughanmwen, Tamera Rhode, Brooke Jenkins and Nakaja Weaver represented MSU at the eighth-annual Gorilla Classic, competing in four combined events over the two-day meet.
“We opted for a week off from competition for most of the athletes to focus on some training aspects,” said assistant coach Taryn Smiley, “but we wanted a couple people who missed last week to get back out there, and we saw some good performances. We’re looking forward to having a larger group compete next weekend.”
In the long jump, Jenkins narrowly missed the podium, finishing fourth against stout competition with a distance of 5.77 meters. The jump, while just shy of her lifetime best (5.81m), was the senior’s best performance of the 2022-23 indoor season to date. Also competing in the event, Weaver placed 29th out of the 37 athletes, with a jump of 5.15 meters.
Jenkins finished the day with a season-best jump of 11.68 meters in the triple jump.
Tamera Rhode had a successful outing as well, finishing in fourth place in the 400-meter run. Racing against a deep field of 56 athletes, Rhode clocked a time of 56.38 seconds, missing the top-three by .01 seconds. The time was a season best for the senior.
Obazughanmwen competed in the 60-meter dash, turning in a time of 7.72 seconds to put her in 13th place and in upper half in the event, but just outside the finals cut.
The Bears will be back in action next Friday (Feb. 17), when the entire team travels to Fayetteville, Ark., to compete in the Arkansas Qualifier. The annual invitational will be held at the Randal Tyson Indoor Track.
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