The Grand Valley State University men’s track and field team took a trip to Bloomington, Ind. this past weekend to compete in the Indianapolis Relays, competing against Divison I competition such as Indiana University and Notre Dame in an unscored meet. The team’s highlight was freshman sprinter Logan Hoffman, who earned a first-place finish in the 400-meter dash with a time of 49.75 seconds.

GVSU head coach Jerry Baltes saw some good and bad things to take away from such a young team’s performance at the Relays.

“We had some decent things happen, some okay and also some ugly things,” Baltes said. “We did not false start in the 4×4 relay and they were able to run a provisional time. We are a pretty young team so a lot was new for our men, but they are learning and getting a little better each week.”

On Friday, the team was led by junior thrower Kyle Eno’s sixth-place finish in the shot put with a distance of 51-3 1/2 and freshman jumper Patrick Livengood’s second-place finish in the high jump with a jump of 6-4. Also, in the mile run, sophomore distance runner Larry Julson finished with a time of 4:16.41, closely followed by fellow junior Tyler Emmorey, who finished in 4:17.57.

Senior sprinter Eric Lowe realizes the season still has a long way to go and this new experience will lead to good things down the road.

“I did not have the greatest times in my events,” Lowe said. “But I know that it is only the middle of the season. It was a new experience to run on a 200-meter track as I have never run on one before. We had a goal at the beginning of the indoor season and hopefully this will help push us toward that goal.”

On Saturday, Logan Hoffman paced the Lakers with his performance in the 400-meter dash, taking first and edging out Notre Dame sprinter Brendan Dougherty by .08 seconds. Meanwhile, in the 200-meter dash, freshman Bret Myers finished fourth with a time of 23.07 seconds. Freshman jumper Aaron Dewberry finished third in the long jump with a jump of 23-2 1/2.

Freshman sprinter Chris Teitsma said he felt the strong competition will help the team as the season progresses and believes the team has room to improve.

“It was fun to see and race against some of the big names in our sport, like Notre Dame,” said Teitsma. “We fared well against them as our times were pretty close to theirs so it is definitely a motivating feeling. We can now use this to mainly work hard to get faster and get ready for indoor nationals.”

Baltes understands how this meet can help his young men’s squad and that the motivation they gained from the tough competition will help their focus.

“Competing against Notre Dame and Indiana University will most definitely help us down the road,” Baltes said. “Hopefully it helped our young guys learn how to deal with the stress and pressure of such a challenging situation. Our groups, overall, just need to stay focused, take care of their bodies and stay smart, so that we can compete at a high level.”

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