The Bradley track and field teams had their most recent meet at the Bryan Clay Invitational on Friday, April 19 in Azusa, California. There were multiple top-10 times that were recorded, resulting in some very proud Braves.
“I thought it was really good overall,” head coach Darren Gauson said. “The one challenge was the weather because it was 93 degrees which is a little bit of a difference from the Midwest. That took a little bit of an adjustment and the times might have been affected a little bit. Overall we had really good performances. It gives us really good momentum going into Drake relays and the Simpson meet. I think we’re in a good spot.”
One of the Braves that stood out was freshman Hannah Ivy, who had run the second-best time in Bradley’s history for the 400-meter dash. Ivy clocked in a time of 56.60 seconds, beating her previous record by 1.26 seconds.
“I felt happy, tired and relieved but a little disappointed, because I was kind of aiming for a 55 [second run],” Hannah said.
Hannah’s time was also the fastest clocked in by a Brave since 1991 when Melodie Turner set the school record of 54.94 seconds. Hannah went into the meet feeling very comfortable as well, confident that she could come out on top.
“I wasn’t worried about the competition for my heat because the time that I was placed at wasn’t my current best time, and that time was still faster than everyone else in my heat,” Hannah explained.
When asked about what she wanted to get out of the rest of the season, her reply was short and sweet, “Continue to drop my time. Just keep on getting it to go down.”
Gauson was incredibly pleased seeing the younger runners perform so well, being able to set a precedent and a goal for the rest of their time at Bradley.
“In January, she was doing well, but we felt like she had big improvements to make,” Gauson said. “In this outdoor season she just kept getting better and better. To go out to California and see her win her heat and run a time that stacks up against any freshman in the nation at 56.61, that is pretty great work. I’m delighted for her, and it shows how our younger athletes are doing.”
Junior Scott Seymour also performed exceptionally well, claiming a second-best time in school history in the 800-meter run. Scott clocked in a time of 1:50.40 and placed 25th out of 154 runners.
“It wouldn’t have surprised me if he broke the school record, to be honest,” Gauson said. “He’s on a rich vein of form right now and has been competing really well. He placed 25 out of 154 runners at a national elite field. So he’s performing at a high level right now. We’re hoping he can kick on have some other big performances in the next month.”
Seymour has not been having too bad of a season in general, but this achievement is definitely something to be proud of. It gives him a goal to achieve the rest of his time at Bradley, as well.
“This is the time of the year when everything starts to click, so I kind of knew something was going to happen,” Scott said. “It was great because it was in California, where it’s warm and it’s something I’ve been working for. In an 800-meter race, 0.2 seconds is a lot to take off, so it was a really good feeling.”
With a few more weeks left before conference meets start, the Braves still have time to show off what they have been working on. It is obvious that everyone is ready to continue their journey.
“[We are looking forward to] Simpson and Drake this coming week, we’ve got 33 athletes competing so that’s a lot to look forward to,” Gauson said. “That will probably be our last big meet before conference. We already have a few people qualified for NCAA, which is great. We hopefully have another six weeks of competing left for our group, so it’d be nice to get people all the way to June for NCAA in Austin. That’d be perfect.”
The Braves will head to Iowa this weekend at the Drake Relays and Kip Janvrin Open.
Created by: Alex Plane and Justin Limoges for BU COM 360