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All Neu in Horizon League
By CHARLES GROVE
YOUNGSTOWN
Youngstown State track and field juggernaut Conner Neu has won the Horizon League’s Alfreeda Goff Men’s Track and Field Athlete of the Year Award.
Neu received the award at the league’s track and field championships, where both the YSU men and women took home Horizon League championships. Neu is the first male Penguin athlete to be named Outdoor Athlete of the Year.
Neu won the hammer throw competition at the conference championship meet with a throw of 69.61 meters — a Horizon League meet record. That broke his record of 64.22 meters he threw at the meet in 2014.
The hammer-throw specialist also finished sixth in the discus and 10th in the shot put.
Neu was so dominant in the hammer throw that his shortest throw of 66.96 meters still would have blown away Milwaukee’s Silas Petrie’s best throw of 57.76, who finished second.
Heading into the competition Neu was unsure of how’d he perform on a surface with much more traction that he was used to seeing.
“Going in the ring was a pretty slow surface. It had a lot of traction and it makes it very difficult when you’re turning your shoes,” Neu said. “We practiced three times on it and it took me until the end of the third practice to get used to the surface.”
Anxiety swelled again when his first throw wasn’t up to his standards. Neu believed Detroit’s Colin Cashner and Valparaiso’s Jacob Smutz to be his main competition but both fouled out, allowing Neu to run away with the win.
“I wasn’t too confident with my first throw because I knew [Cashner and Smutz] could beat that distance,” Neu said. “Then I threw 69 meters and I felt a little more comfortable and then when those two fouled out I felt pretty safe and relaxed a bit.”
As of Monday, Neu ranks fourth nationally in the hammer throw with a toss of 70.96 meters and he’s one of just seven throwers in the nation to have eclipsed the 70-meter mark this spring.
Neu also placed eighth in the hammer throw at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships this year and was named a first-team All-American.
Next on the horizon is the NCAA regional meet and perhaps the national meet if Neu can replicate his performance at the Horizon League meet.
“I’m competing this week at Allegheny College to keep competing and keep that mindset going and then regionals in two weeks,” Neu said. “If I finish top-10 there I’ll go to the national meet in Oregon.”