Waldorf Men’s Track Starts Season on Right Foot

By Zach Throne

The Warrior men’s track team won its first meet of the season on Saturday, Jan. 25 at the Cornell College Hilltop Indoor meet. They finished with 161 team points and beat the home team and second-place finisher, Cornell, by 37 points.

Waldorf saw five first place individual finishes and a school record.

Elijah Cannon finished second in the preliminaries for the 60-meter dash, but he responded well in the finals, improving to a first-place medal with a time of 7.19 seconds.

Mark Esquivel ran unattached, although he takes classes with Waldorf. He finished first in the 200-meter dash.

Freshman Marcus Brown had quite the college debut. He won the open 400-meter run with a time of 52.49 seconds. Brown was also apart of Waldorf’s 4×200 and 4×400 relays.

A freshmen quartet of Brown, Angel Zamora, Demarre Martin and Khamarly Holmes set a school record in the 4×200 meter relay at 1:36.12. Despite the school record, the Warriors finished in second place in the event.

“It was so awesome to watch as the freshmen stepped up all day,” says teammate Jake Conlon, who is nursing a sports hernia injury. “It will be nice to get back out there with the guys when I get healthy, but they are doing a great job for the first meet of the indoor season.”

Brown and Martin teamed up with senior Cameron Newsome and freshman Nolan Reynolds in the 4×400 to finish first at 3:38.11. Newsome made NAIA Indoor Nationals last year in the high jump, and he started this season with a win in the event.

Zach Morel dominated the 60-meter hurdles event by almost four-tenths of a second for a time of 8.67 seconds.

“It felt good to be competing on the track again,” said Morel, who will be in the heptathlon next week at Wartburg in Waverly, IA. “Hopefully, we can carry this success into next week.”

The Warriors travel to Waverly for a two-day meet on Jan. 31- Feb. 1.