Freshman steals the show on Senior Day

Friday, April 21

Phoenix, Ariz.

Grand Canyon

Canyon Invitational

4/23/2023 12:08:00 AM | Track and Field

Lopes break 3 school records at Canyon Invitational

By: Nathan Peters

The Grand Canyon track and field team finished off its second home meet of the year with quite an impressive performance Saturday.

"What a great night to be a member of our GCU track and field family and to honor the seniors for all they have done for our program," Lopes head coach Tom Flood said.

Thirty seniors were recognized with family, teammates and friends prior to the start of the night events at GCU Track.

"The athlete of the meet had to be true freshman Conner Kittleson," Flood said. "He had a night at the 'Oval Office' that will be talked about for a while. He started off the evening by running the third leg of our men's record-breaking 4x100-meter relay squad. Conner followed that up with the third fastest 100-meter time in the WAC (10.37) and finished the evening by breaking the GCU freshman record in the 200 meters (21.05), which is the fourth-fastest time in the WAC."

Not only did Kittleson accomplish all of those feats, but each was done with legal wind times.

"We started the evening off with a bang by destroying our school record in the men's 4x100-meter relay by running a WAC-leading time of 39.32 (seconds)," Flood said.

That mark by Adam Knuff, Mariano Hernandez, Conner Kittleson and Kyle De Moica is the 10th fastest time in the NCAA West Region this year and broke a 10-year-old school record.

"Jazmine Scott also had a wonderful evening by breaking our school record in the triple jump with a mark of 12.73 meters," Flood said.

That is the second-best mark in the WAC and 30th in the West Region while Scott also moved into the top eight in the WAC in the long jump (5.92 metetrs),

"I am continually expressed with Erin Brown every time he steps on the track, and tonight he made it look easy as he crushed a long-standing school record in the 400 meters with a time of 46.45," Flood said. "That is the No. 1 time in the WAC and also the 35th-fastest time in the West Region."

"It was also nice to see Eric Cabais-Fernandez (5.13 meters) and Grant Hagaman (5.08 meters) both over 5 meters in the pole vault, which puts them each in the much-desired top 48 spots in the West Region," Flood said.

Brooke Weimer (6.08 meters) and Mia Corners (5.98 meters) both had great long jumps and each moved into the top five in the WAC. Brooke's mark put her into the top 48 in the West Region.

"We also had a lot of other great performances by our women's 800-meter group, our men's 1,500-meter group, Cannon Angotti in the steeplechase, our men's and women's hammer throwers, Jaida Olson in the pole vault and Dawnielle Lewis and Katie Petsch in the women's 100 and 200 meters," Flood said.

Angotti debuted in the steeplechase with a time of 9 minutes, 14.57 seconds.

"We will let Conner and the rest of the team enjoy a nice relaxing Sunday, but we all will get back after it again on Monday to get even better," Flood said. "We will run/jump/throw again next Saturday at Arizona."

Full results can be found here.