Track freshmen performing much more like veterans
The Utah State track and field team has seen its fair share of leaders. It has seen numbers of athletes who have turned heads with conference-leading performances and nationally ranking marks. This season, however, has seen a number of those performances come from some of the younger among its ranks. Several freshmen this year have made their permanent mark on Utah State history, which is notable since their marks still stand to be raised substantially for a few more years yet.
Just last week in the blustering wind and pouring rain in Provo, freshman Chari Hawkins plowed the competition in the heptathlon at the Robison Invitational. Not only did she take first, but her score of 5159 was the conference-leading multi-event score, 23rd in the nation, third among freshmen in the nation and fourth in Utah State history. Definitely something to write to the folks back home. This time last year, Hawkins was running the 100-meter hurdles, long jump and 200-meter dash at Madison High School in Rexburg, Idaho.
Although Hawkins is among the Aggie’s group of conference leading athletes, one of two women along with Ruth Hilton in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, she does not view herself as one of the team’s leaders.
“I think of the older kids as the leaders,” Hawkins said. “They all still know way more than I do. It’s nice to have older kids teaching me how to do (my events) still. I still kinda feel like like a follower.”
With memories of high school still fresh in her mind, Hawkins was quick to note the difference in team mentality, among other differences, between high school competition and the collegiate ranks.
“It’s more individual in high school,” she said. “I could do my own thing. Here, I’ll see someone on the track team and I’ll look up to them. You’d do almost anything for your teammates. You all have a connection. There’s not just one person that’s an example to me, because there’s so many people on the team that I look up to.”
Fellow freshman leader Tanner Hunt agrees concerning his role on Utah State’s team.
“There’s a lot of role models on the team,” Hunt said. “I look at the work ethic of the seniors. For me, it’s just been that adjustment of getting to that same level of work ethic.”
Hunt has noticed the same adjustment from high school to college as Hawkins, although distance between the two institutions is less. Hunt is a hometown hero who graduated from Sky View High School, just minutes away from Utah State. Although he looked at several other bigger schools including BYU, Washington, and Colorado, he said that Utah State ultimately was the best fit.
“I love being at home, and I liked the coaches,” Hunt said.
More than that, however, Utah State needed a 400-meter runner. Hunt has made an immediate impact as the team’s leading long sprinter. Hunt leads the team and sits at third in the conference with his mark of 48.01, which he ran a few weeks ago the Mark Faldmo Invitational here in Logan. He’s come painfully close to matching his personal record from high school, 47.7, during the indoor season when he ran a 47.99. Although a little better stocked at the shorter sprints, Hunt has contributed there as well. He is the third fastest 200-meter runner on the team with a time of 21.99.
Kylie Hirschi is another freshman who has been catching the attention of the conference this season. Hirschi, an alumnus of Brighton High School in Sandy, isn’t the conference leader. She’s only second in the conference in the 400-meter hurdles, an event that, like Hawkins in the heptathlon, she did not have an opportunity to run until she reached the collegiate level this year. Not only that, but her time of 1:00.04 was good enough to beat defending WAC champion Latrisha Jordan of Fresno State in the Cal Brutus Invitational last week. That definitely got USU head coach Gregg Gensel’s attention.
“She came off the turn with three hurdles to go,” Gensel said. “And the Fresno girl was ahead of her and she said ‘I’m gonna beat this girl.’ It’s just matter of time before she breaks 60 seconds in the 400. Then you’re national caliber.”
Hirschi is painfully close to the 60-second mark in the 400-meter hurdles, but also of interest is her recent success in the 800-meter dash. On her last outing in the event, one of only a handful of times she’s run the event including high school and college, she ran a 2:09.58. Not only is the time the fastest time on the team by about three seconds, it’s good for fourth in the conference, and just over three seconds away from the first place mark. Although Gensel said she’ll be more likely to run the 800-meter during the indoor season where there are no 400-meter hurdles to run, the ability to perform with that kind of stamina shows some promise in a grueling hurdles race that is frequently won or lost in the last 100 meters.
“Being a hurdler and 800 runner are conducive as far as training goes,” Gensel said. “She’s ranked high in both events. That’s a good problem to have as a coach. The goal is to put her where she’s the happiest and where she’ll score the most points.”
Hirschi said she hopes to keep excelling along with the myriad other talented freshmen.
“The thing I’ve learned about athletes over the years is that if they’ve got a good head on their shoulders, have talent and if they work hard, they’re gonna be a good one. These three have all of those qualities,” Gensel said of his promising young athletes. “You don’t always know the intangibles, like the work ethic, before you get them. You have to go on what your impressions are, what the coaches tell you, those kind of things. I knew with those three. I saw that in them in high school. We have a lot of people like that on the team.
The magic is that there are still several years left for Hirschi, Hunt, Hawkins and a slew of young talented freshman to prove Gensel right.
– michael.d.rees@aggiemail.usu.edu