Kneffler Wins Pole Vault on Day One of MAC Outdoor Championships
5/7/2021 10:10:00 PM | Men's Track & Field
OXFORD, Ohio – The Kent State men's track and field had a solid showing on day one of the 2021 Mid-American Conference Outdoor Championships, with one athlete winning an event title and six other athletes advancing from their preliminaries to tomorrow's finals.
Kristian Kneffler had the highlight of the day for the Golden Flashes. He entered the pole vault ranked second in the MAC with a height of 16' 10.75"; he finished the day as the new MAC champion, setting a personal best by four inches and winning with a height of 17' 3". The new best also moved Kneffler from fifth on the Kent State performance list to third.
In preliminaries, Asa Hodrick and Dejon Manning both qualified for the 100-meter and 200-meter dash finals, and they will be joined by Jaheim Jones in tomorrow's 100m dash final. Manning and Hodrick each qualified for the final by finishing in the top two of their heat. Manning will be credited with a personal best time of 10.71. Hodrick finished with a time of 10.40, but will not be credited with a personal best as the wind-speed exceeded +2.0 m/s. Jones qualified based on having one of the fastest times after the heat winners were placed, clocking a 10.45. Like Hodrick, his time will not count due to the wind.
In the 200-meter dash preliminaries, Hodrick once again finished in the top two in his heat, running a personal best 21.62. Manning would qualify based on his time, running 21.61.
Kent State will also have two competitors in tomorrow's 800-meter run final, with Ethan Yost and Quintin Cooks both qualifying based on time. Yost finished in 1:53.66 while Cooks crossed the line a fraction of a second later as the clock read 1:53.97.
Rounding out the list of Flashes who qualified to finals tomorrow is Dontae Deas, who improved upon his personal best set last week at West Virginia to qualify for tomorrow's 400-meter hurdles final. Deas ran a 54.45 and qualified based on time.
The decathlon also got started on day two, with Jacob Mally sitting in second place 43 points behind the leader after five events. Mally ran a wind-aided 11.26 to start the day strong and picked up a personal best in the long jump. Alexander Shields will enter day two in fourth, 328 points behind third place. The decathlon will resume at 10:30 a.m. with the 110-meter hurdles and will conclude around 5:30 p.m. tomorrow afternoon with the 1,500-meter run.
Day two will resume at 9:30 a.m. with the hammer throw. Action on the track will resume at 1:30 p.m. with the 4x100-meter relay. The traditional final event of the meet, the 4x400-meter relay, is set to begin at 5:35 p.m.
Day 1 Standings
1. Miami – 47
2. Buffalo – 45.50
3. Eastern Michigan – 45
4. Akron – 32.50
5. Kent State – 16
Players Mentioned
