While the 400-meter relay floundered to a disqualification, the Illinois men’s track and field freshmen led the team to its second meet win of the season at the Lee Calhoun Invitational in Macomb, Ill.

“We did not have a ton riding on the outcome of this meet, but it was still great to see the guys put in the effort to pull out a win,” head coach Mike Turk said. 

The Illini dominated in 3,000 meters with four runners finishing in the top five, and freshman Will Brewster taking first with a time of 8 minutes, 30 seconds — a meet record. Redshirt freshman Paul Zeman and senior Nathan Troester tailed Brewster, finishing second and third, respectively. Junior Mark Donohue finished fifth.

“The 3,000 was a lot of fun for us,” Turk said. “The freshman in that event put in the effort to help us come away with key points. This will be one of results that we will look at down the road sometime as big in the growth of our younger guys in the long distance events.”

Illinois freshmen Cam Viney and Nathan Loe also came up big over the weekend in the field and hurdles events. 

Viney raced to his first outdoor season-title with a time of 53.05 in the 400-meter hurdles. The freshman hurdler also finished second in the 110-meter hurdles with a time of 14.37.

In the hammer throw, Loe recorded a distance of 60.83 meters, which was third best in school history. 

Junior Cody Klein and freshman Mitch Mammoser tied the meet record in the pole vault with vault heights of 5.05 meters. Though both tied with an identical vault height, Klein was awarded the tie-breaker over his pole-vault counterpart.

“Nathan really stepped it up in hammer throw as he is taking the place of Davis (Fraker) in the lineup,” Turk said. “Once again, the pole vaulting crew with Cody and Mitch leading the way has continued to be a model of consistency for us so far.”

While the Illini received a multitude of successful results from its inexperienced athletes, the team experienced trouble in 4×100 once again. The 4×100 squad was disqualified for the second time in the outdoor season following a botched exchange between the first and second legs. Prior to the meet, Turk employed a lineup change by replacing the injured junior Vanier Joseph with sophomore Jade Ackerman. 

“It was just tough knowing that our major focus in trying to improve in the 4×1 was our exchanges, and that’s what hurt us again,” sophomore Brandon Stryganek said. “We know it’s not the end of the world since this meet wasn’t that important for us, but we know we have work to do before the Drake Relays.”

Dan can be reached at [email protected]