Distance carnival, Dudarev highlight day 2 of KU Relays
LAWRENCE, Kan. – A third-consecutive KU Relays title for Kansas’ Gleb Dudarev and a host of competitive distance races resulted in another exciting day at the 92nd Kansas Relays presented by RCB Bank Thursday. Dudarev claimed the meet’s hammer throw championship for the third-straight year, while the Jayhawks also collected a handful of top collegiate finishes in the running events in the evening.
The distance carnival took center stage Thursday night. Kansas posted the top collegiate finish in four of the events, with the Jayhawks’ Ethan Donley and Catherine Liggett taking victories in the men’s and women’s 800 meter races, posting times of 1:53.28 and 2:14.65, respectively.
A pair of KU sophomores also turned in impressive times in the 5,000 meter races. In the women’s event, Cameron Gueldner was the top collegiate finisher by way of her personal best time of 17:02.91. Ben Miller took top collegiate honors in the men’s 5K, also besting a career best with his time of 14:17.13.
The 10,000-meter races closed out the evening. Northwest Missouri freshman Keely Danielsen posted the fastest time among the collegiate runners with her 39:01.83 clocking. On the men’s side, Cloud County freshman Dennis Kiptoo run away from the field to post a 13-second victory with his time of 30:24.52.
Dudarev collected his third Kansas Relays title in the hammer throw via another impressive performance. Dudarev, who smashed the meet record a year ago with one of the top throws in collegiate history, tallied another memorable outing inside the Rock Chalk Park throws cage. After two tosses that surpassed 235 feet in the preliminary rounds, the four-time Big 12 champion unwound for a mark that flew to 72.29 meters (237-2 ft.) on his fourth attempt. That mark topped the rest of the field by nearly 30 feet and earned the easy victory.
The decathlon and heptathlon concluded during the second day’s events. It was a pair of underclassmen who came away from Rock Chalk Park with hardware. Kansas freshman Toni Englund came from behindon the event’s second day to earn her first collegiate heptathlon title by the slimmest of margins. Englund, who posted top-four finishes in five of the seven events, overtook Emporia State’s Brianna Schmitz with a big throw in the javelin (31.18 meters/102-3 ft.). She then closed down the heptathlon with a third-place finish in the 800 meters after completing her two laps in 2:27.26, a performance that earned her 728 points, her third-most of the competition, and the event title.
She finished with a final total of 4,769, to outlast Schmitz by just a single point.
In the men’s decathlon, it was a South Plains CC freshman who held off the competition to claim the event title. Asani Hylton finished among the top-two competitors in all but one of the 10 events to earn his first collegiate win. The Jamaica product posted the field’s top javelin throw, a heave of 48.97 meters (160-8 ft.), before holding his place at the top of the leaderboard following a 5:06.78 run in the final event, the 1,500 meters.
Hylton’s final score of 6,548 outpaced the runner-up, Baker’s Logan Lamb, by 470 points to run away with the championship.
Two more full days await at the 92nd Kansas Relays presented by RCB Bank. High school events get underway at 9 a.m., Friday with the first collegiate events on the track at 10:15 a.m. Log on to KansasRelays.com for updates and follow on Twitter at @KU_Relays.
