FRANKLIN, Ind. – The Franklin College track and field teams took part in two events as part of a busy weekend. On Friday (Apr. 1) night, Franklin distance runners headed to St. Louis for the WashU Distance Carnival as a tune-up for Saturday's (Apr. 2) Grizzly Invitational at their home track.
Four Grizzly distance runners took part in the Friday night 5K festivities with John Asplund (15:24.91), Elliott Gough (15:57.58), Jack Sells (16:09.97) and Corbin Lee (17:14.43) competing in a field of 174 runners.
It proved to be the start of a great weekend for the Grizzlies, with the men's track and field team placing second in their home meet with 151 points and seven event wins.
Senior Zak Wiley accounted for two of those event wins, dominating in both the discus (45.59m) and the hammer throw (49.34m) while adding a fourth-place finish in the javelin (38.23m). Wiley currently ranks 24th in the nation in the discus and 29th in the hammer throw.
Two Franklin freshman also claimed wins in the field. Tristan Konkler bested the field in the high jump by clearing the 1.75m bar and Tivon Wiley claimed the top spot in the pole vault after clearing the 3.35m mark. Sophomore Noah Sigler took second in the hammer throw (45.85m), Dalen Williams earned runner-up in the discus (43.21m) and Evan Hosea claimed fourth in the hammer (43.22m).
On the track, junior Jaycee Wilburn claimed top billing in the mile with a time of 4:37.17, finishing just ahead of Gough (4:38.72) and Sells (4:39.26) on the event leaderboard. Nick Patton claimed a first place showing in the 110 hurdles in 16:49 and the 4x400m relay team of Wilburn, Eli Cochrane, Michael Heading and Drew McGaha closed out the day with a winning time of 3:34.58.
The Grizzlies are back in action next Saturday (Apr. 9) when they travel to Crawfordsville, Ind. for the Wabash Invitational.
