Thought I'd carve out a little space to keep this updated, as a few others have across the different sports. I'll keep it pretty high-level, as I only have access to what is public and can't fill you in on anything regarding coaching, recruiting or facilities.
The team spent the last two weeks running against some strong competition at the Tennessee Relays and then a non-scored meet at UVa. The former is one of the better relay meets on the East Coast, but isn't quite up to par with the Texas, Drake, or Penn Relays. The latter was a decent previous for the ACC meet, but nothing all that notable.
Some notable performances:
Felix Wolter (Sr.) 7950 Dec (#2 regional, #2 national)
Kollin Smith (Sr.) 25'4" LJ (#9 regional, #21 national)
Noah Walker (Sr.) 185'8" DT (#13 regional, #28 national)
Ade Jones-Roundtree (Sr.) 46.72 400m (#27 regional, #57 national)
Kollin Smith (Sr.) 14.16 110mh (#37 regional)
Wolter's Dec is truly a world-class score and while I don't think he's a legit candidate to win a NC -- mostly because Georgia has three athletes who are 8500 capable -- it deserves mention if for no other reason that it's a school record by leaps and bounds and really difficult to do given our current facilities.
(As an aside, Wolter is German and unfortunately Germany is one of, if not the deepest multi country on the Men's side. To get a sniff at an Olympic spot, you have to be top 10 in the world and unfortunately Wolter isn't close to that. His improvement is certainly compelling but I don't think we'll have a Pitt Olympian this year.)
Outside of that group, I do think that Lauray will find his form -- his SB is only 6'8" which is eight inches off of his PB -- and I think the 4x400 has a shot to go ~3:05 at the ACC meet which will at least get them to regionals. If that happens, that'll be the most Pitt has sent to that meet in quite some time -- and while the team is certainly improved, it's worrisome that all of the top talent are seniors and the distance athletes continue to badly underperform.
No meet this week, in two weeks time we've got the ACC meet at NC State. How the team will do depends on a few things, such as how HCAW wants to deploy Wolter, but my guess is that the team will have one of the better conference meets of late and finish somewhere mid-table, maybe 6th or 7th. Florida State and Clemson are the odds-on favorites.
The team spent the last two weeks running against some strong competition at the Tennessee Relays and then a non-scored meet at UVa. The former is one of the better relay meets on the East Coast, but isn't quite up to par with the Texas, Drake, or Penn Relays. The latter was a decent previous for the ACC meet, but nothing all that notable.
Some notable performances:
Felix Wolter (Sr.) 7950 Dec (#2 regional, #2 national)
Kollin Smith (Sr.) 25'4" LJ (#9 regional, #21 national)
Noah Walker (Sr.) 185'8" DT (#13 regional, #28 national)
Ade Jones-Roundtree (Sr.) 46.72 400m (#27 regional, #57 national)
Kollin Smith (Sr.) 14.16 110mh (#37 regional)
Wolter's Dec is truly a world-class score and while I don't think he's a legit candidate to win a NC -- mostly because Georgia has three athletes who are 8500 capable -- it deserves mention if for no other reason that it's a school record by leaps and bounds and really difficult to do given our current facilities.
(As an aside, Wolter is German and unfortunately Germany is one of, if not the deepest multi country on the Men's side. To get a sniff at an Olympic spot, you have to be top 10 in the world and unfortunately Wolter isn't close to that. His improvement is certainly compelling but I don't think we'll have a Pitt Olympian this year.)
Outside of that group, I do think that Lauray will find his form -- his SB is only 6'8" which is eight inches off of his PB -- and I think the 4x400 has a shot to go ~3:05 at the ACC meet which will at least get them to regionals. If that happens, that'll be the most Pitt has sent to that meet in quite some time -- and while the team is certainly improved, it's worrisome that all of the top talent are seniors and the distance athletes continue to badly underperform.
No meet this week, in two weeks time we've got the ACC meet at NC State. How the team will do depends on a few things, such as how HCAW wants to deploy Wolter, but my guess is that the team will have one of the better conference meets of late and finish somewhere mid-table, maybe 6th or 7th. Florida State and Clemson are the odds-on favorites.
