PITTSBURG — The Pittsburg State University men's indoor track & field team entered Championship Sunday with a sizable lead and the Gorillas slammed the door on the competition early in the day to secure the 2023 MIAA Indoor Championships at the Robert W. Plaster Center.
The Gorillas posted 208.5 points – the highest point total in MIAA Indoor Championships history – to beat MIAA runner-up Missouri Southern State University by 108 points. The Lions finished the meet with 100.5 points, while third-place University of Nebraska-Kearney totaled 79 points.
The previous high point total in meet history was 194 points, scored by the University of Central Missouri in winning the league crown in 2001.
Throwers Konner Swenson and Cole Sample opened the floodgate on points scoring in the first event of the day. Swenson captured the first of six MIAA titles on the day by winning the shot put with a toss of 58 feet, 3.75 inches. Sample added a fifth-place finish (56-9.25) in the discipline.
Diego Contreras (4:06.74) and Braden Zaner (4:07.34) added third and fifth-place finishes in the mile run, before the Gorillas complete flooded the scoreboard by sweeping the medal stand in the 60 meter hurdles, 60 meters and the 400 meters for a blink-of-an-eye 72-point outburst on the track.
Cordell Tinch (7.58), T.J. Caldwell (7.64) and Daylin Powell (7.80) swept the top three finishes in the hurdles; Antoine Evans Jr. (6.70), Xavier Carmichael (6.72) and Tevin Wright-Rose (6.73) swept the top spots in the 60m; and Corey Lyons (46.62), Sam Tudor (46.91) and Braylen Brewer (46.92) all hit the medal stand in the 400m.
Tinch, Caldwell and Powell exited the meet ranked No. 1, No. 2 and No.4 nationally in the hurdles. Caldwell shaved 0.10 off his personal-best with his fast time Sunday.
In addition to his 60m crown, Evans also shattered the school record in winning the 200 meters in 21.04 seconds. Bailey Stone added a fifth-place time of 21.51. He also placed fifth in the 400m (47.69).
Zaner, who claimed an MIAA title in the 5,000m Saturday, added a fifth-place effort in the 3,000m (8:25.12), while Contreras placed sixth (8:25.92) and Matthew Oglesby finished seventh (8:26.29).
Newcomer Treyvon Ferguson scored an MIAA title in his first competition of the season in the triple jump. He popped a mark of 51-3 to win the meet & land at No. 3 on Pitt State's all-time indoor list. L.J. Kiner, the MIAA champion in the long jump Saturday, also placed third in the triple jump (49-6.25).
The 4x400m relay of Dre'shaun Sanders, Kiner, Tinch and Evans ended the day with a fifth-place time of 3:15.80.
Tinch and Evans shared the MIAA Men's High Point Scorer honor by generating 21 points apiece for the Gorillas on the weekend.
The Gorillas won their third straight MIAA indoor crown and the program's seventh MIAA indoor title in the last 10 years (2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2021, 2022, 2023). Overall, this marked Pitt State's ninth MIAA Indoor Championship since joining the conference in 1990.
