Track & Field Opens Outdoor Season Friday At Illinois State

By: Dan Avington (COMM '22)

Many fall sports were able to return to a new normal this spring as restrictions lifted and collegiate athletics were resumed.

For the Marquette track and field program, things have been anything but normal.

"We faced a lot of challenges across indoor, outdoor and cross-country with scheduling," director of track & field and cross country Bert Rogers said. "We had a two-month block from Thanksgiving to late January when everyone returned home and I was pleased to see everybody came back in good shape."

The cross country season had just one meet, the BIG EAST Championship, where Marquette's men and women each finished sixth in the conference.

Then indoor track & field consisted of only four meets without a league championship.

But putting those troubles in the past, all eyes are set on the outdoor season, which opens on Friday, April 2 at the Redbird Invite, hosted by Illinois State.

"It feels like we're getting a little bit back to normal," Rogers said. "I want to see where we're going to take what we've done so far and apply it to the next several weeks here as we head to BIG EAST outdoors."

Rogers said the pandemic has forced him and his staff to relax and let the student-athletes take charge of their development.

"We're just letting go of some stuff, saying, 'Okay, that's out of our hands.' The student-athletes are just taking even more ownership of their own training," Rogers said. "They're young adults and they want to be good, so they're going to do the things they need to do to be good. Those kinds of things are a little bit of a change, but reassuring."

Even though he considers the BIG EAST to be a "powerhouse conference," Rogers thinks his team has the capability to compete in a number of events.

"I really feel like across the board in all of our event areas, we've got people that can be point scorers for us here in outdoors," Rogers said.

On jumps, Lindsey Mirkes, Marin McClowry and Claudia Millán will lead the women's side, while Marquis Ward and Sam Johnson look to continue their dominance for the men's group.
For throws, Rogers predicted big seasons from Lizzy Cagle and Allie Flando, as well as Vinnie Voudrie.

Kate Jochims will pace the women's distance runners, while the men's distance group boasts some depth.

Rogers mentioned options for the men's and women's sprints and hurdles are both looking solid as well.

Because of the strange leadup to this season, Rogers said the makeup of some BIG EAST opponents is still largely unknown.

"We still don't exactly know what everybody's made up of yet," Rogers said. "When we get into these first couple of meets outdoors, we'll get a little bit of a better sense of where we stack up with the conference, but I still expect us to be a contender and be right up there in the team race."

For Rogers, an obvious goal for his program is to bring home some hardware.

"We want to do as well as we can at BIG EAST," Rogers said. "It's always a team goal of some sort to bring home a team trophy and put as many people up on the podium as possible."

But on a broader scale, Rogers simply wants his athletes to seek improvement at every meet, and with that will come the results.

"We want to just go week-to-week, continue to improve," Rogers said. "Records and that kind of stuff is going to happen when they have the right opportunity and the right situation. Good times and good jumps and good throws, that will all come."