My Expectations for Marshall Track & Field Entering the Outdoor Season

 By Ben Anderson

    The old saying “time flies when you’re having fun” is true more now than ever for Marshall Track & Field as it begins the outdoor season next week, following a successful indoor season that saw a lot of growth in the team. 

    The Thundering Herd concluded the indoor season with the women’s team finishing 8th and the men’s team finishing 7th at the Sun Belt Conference Indoor Championships. The factor that stood out to me the most was the teams’ ability to score in multiple events, something that Director of Track & Field Keith Roberts said is crucial for the Thundering Herd to build off of.

    “It’s definitely good for the future,” Roberts said in an interview with First and Ben. “You need still need those big hitters and we still need to make sure that we’re continuing to grow. But we definitely have them. They’re in the mix. They’re in the fold. We had even the ones that scored that missed the podium, they were’ right there almost getting on the podium.”

    “When you look at sophomores, even some of our best athletes that we’ve had here historically, if you look at them their sophomore year, they might have scored one or two points, and they were amazing,” “It’s not a knock on them. They were amazing athletes, but it just shows you how hard is it to do that in this conference. So, I think it definitely shows that the future is bright.”

    Roberts said that there are things that need to fixed going into the outdoor season, but there is still plenty of strengths that favor the Thundering Herd.

    “Some of it had to with things that were out of control,” Roberts said about the downsides on the teams’ performance at the Sun Belt Conference Indoor Championships. “If somebody goes down, it’s nothing you could do. But then when that happens, though, you need even more people to step up. And I think that’s going to happen.”

    “The last couple of years we had three hurdlers make the four in the hurdle final,” Roberts said. “Taylor (Spencer) got on the podium in the steeple. We have a really good jab thrower on our team now. Collectively, our women’s 4x100, we have six women that we could put on the 4x100. We have really seven or eight that we can kind of interchange and score big points.”

    With track & field, many people think that it’s not a team sport, and more of just relying on individuals. The more I have followed this program over my four years at Marshall University, I’ve learned from Roberts that this is not true, and that it takes teamwork to win championships, especially in the Sun Belt Conference no matter what season of the sport you are in.

    “I would rather have, five kids scoring 10 points rather than one kid scoring twenty or getting these accolades. That’s not that I don’t want those kids because we’re going to need those kids as well to win. But just can everybody chip in? Can you fight to get into a final? I always use a story that an athlete that I coaches that was the last person to make a final, but they end up winning. Those kinds of things are what you want to have in your program. because if you scrap and you claw, and you fight, then all of a sudden you start stacking up points that you didn’t think you could get, and that’s when you start winning.”

    The goals for higher strides are the same for both the men’s and women’s cross-country teams. 

    “One of my goals is get the 5K school record (on the men’s side),” Bowen said. “I think that’s the one that can be taken down by either Justin (Lipscomb), Max (Sowers), Brady (Dawkins), somebody. 10K record, I’m hoping that can be taken down by Brady as well. On the women’s side, the steeplechase record, Sydney Smith, I think that one could definitely go down because Taylor’s (Spencer) right there. She’s like two seconds off.”

    I agree with Bowen on expecting these runners to break records this season. Taylor Spencer seems to have figured out the steeplechase over the past few seasons, and on the men’s side, Sowers & Lipscomb led the way during the cross-country season as well as in the indoor season.

    I’ve really been impressed with how the men’s team has been able to carry on the success of their predecessors since the reboot in 2022. The team went from Brett Armbruster & Evan White setting the foundation, to Ronnie Saunders breaking records, to the current day with Sowers & Lipscomb. 

    Bowen said that with long distance in the outdoor season, you have to make sure that everyone is prepared, despite each runner having different profiles on the track.

    “Each person has a little bit of things or some things that need to work on,” Bowen said. “A lot of it’s just general fitness, like getting their aerobic capacity expanded a little bit. So, we went back to the basics for the past couple of weeks and some of them won’t open up until April. So, they’re really nailing the workouts right now, getting into heavy training Whereas others are going to be opening up at spring break next week. Just getting them into the right heats and right meets and stuff. So, it’s definitely training focused right now.” 

    The women’s side has a big returnee for the outdoor season.

    “On the women’s side, we’re adding Destiny (Berryman) back for this outdoor season, and then next year we’re bringing back Hannah (Wyler) and Destiny. So, we’re going to have a little more loaded team on the distance side. So, that just going to help if we can just keep them healthy and keep them rolling.”

    Adding Berryman back for the outdoor season is huge for the Thundering Herd. The sophomore and Clarksburg W.Va. native, being named Sun Belt Conference runner of the week in September after setting a personal record in the 5K at the Southern Showcase. 

    I expect Berryman to bring in plenty of points for the Thundering Herd, especially with the likes of Asha Bora & Hannah Toth alongside her. 

    With the outdoor season, I expect individual championships, but I give the Thundering Herd another season before it can potentially finish in the top three in the league. The reasoning behind this is because next season, your top athletes will all be upperclassman. This and bringing in a few transfers, especially on the throws side, I think can help Marshall catapult to the next level.

    Overall, I think that the Thundering Herd is moving towards the right direction to becoming championship contenders, as the past results have proven just that. It’s sad that I will not be able to report on it following the conclusion of this outdoor season due to graduation and moving away for graduate school. Hopefully, the Herd can give me one last memorable run like it has in years past. 

    Marshall Track & Field officially begins the outdoor season on Thursday in Jacksonville Florida at the River City Relays hosted by the University of North Florida