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YSU teams favored in Horizon League championships
youngstown
This weekend could be one of the biggest and most memorable for the Youngstown State track and field program in quite a while.
YSU is hosting the Horizon League Outdoor Track and Field Championships from Friday through Sunday and both the men’s and women’s programs could hit significant milestones with conference championships.
“The women are going after a four-peat,” YSU head coach Brian Gorby said. “This would be the fourth outdoor championship in a row and it would be really cool for the seniors to go through their four years without not winning a championship. Hopefully we can get that for them.”
The men will complete the league triple crown with a conference championship. That includes a cross country championship, an indoor track and field championship and an outdoor track and field championship. The last time YSU accomplished that in the same academic year was 1997-98.
So how’s the outlook? Gorby said the odds are good — especially for the women.
“On paper we’re definitely in a pretty good situation on both sides,” Gorby said. “From a points perspective the women could win by double digits to triple digits depending on how everyone does.”
The men on the other hand are still favorites, according to Gorby. And if they can benefit from performing well in areas Oakland, their main competition, won’t be competing in, a sweep could be in the works.
“Oakland has nobody scoring in the long jump, the triple jump, the hammer throw and the discus,” Gorby said. “That’s four events where we could get 80-100 points really quick. We’ll have a pretty good idea how we’re doing after the first day.”
Chad Zallow will run the 100, the 200 and the 110 hurdles. He’s first in the nation in the 110 hurdles with a time of 13.37 seconds and is ranked first in this meet by more than 0.3 seconds. Zallow said he enjoys having all the conference teams gunning for YSU.
“We’re definitely much more favorites than we were at indoors,” Zallow said. “We’ve got a big target on our back coming off of championships last year and this year. It’s a real motivation knowing everyone is coming for you.”
Zallow just recently finished third at the Penn Relays in the 110 hurdles — a nice finish, but one that didn’t nearly satisfy him.
“I’ve still got something to prove,” Zallow said. “I wasn’t too satisfied with how I did at the Penn Relays. I did good coming in third but ultimately I’m still always shooting for first.”
Another YSU hurdler, Amber Eles, had a tremendous indoor championship meet in February. She broke the school record in the 60 hurdles in the preliminary round and then did it again in the final. Last year she broke the outdoor 100 hurdles record and wouldn’t mind doing it again this year.
“The goal is to try to win the 100 hurdles,” Eles said. “Secondly is the school record again.”
She is coming into the weekend with a plan.
“The way I try to look at it is it’s just like any other meet,” Eles said. “I try not to look at it like conference, even though I know it is conference. I don’t want to put that pressure on myself.
“If I run how I normally do my times will show at the end of the race.”
BUNDLE UP
The weather forecast for the weekend doesn’t look pleasant. Friday’s high may get into the lower 60s but rain is expected. On Saturday and Sunday the temperature isn’t supposed to get much higher than 50 with more rain possible.
Gorby said if high winds are predicted, some of the events may move indoors, but not many.
“It’ll pretty much be rain or shine,” Gorby said. “If wind gusts get too high there’s a possibility they’ll move the pole vault and high jump indoors. You don’t want to be way up in the air on a pole vault with a 50-mph gust of wind and you’re trying to land on a mat.”