Pride indoor season continues at Monmouth's Midwest Invitational
MONMOUTH, Ill. - Their final weekend of the indoor season with just one day of competition, the Clarke University track and field teams saw 11 individual/relay top-three finishes at the Midwest Invitational hosted by Monmouth College on Saturday.
Out of those 11 top-three finishes, eight of those were event wins, led by a performance on the track that saw the Pride win five races, two of which came from Gavayne Smith as the senior from Darliston, Westmoreland, Jamaica won both the 60 and 200-meter dashes in his return to action for the first time in the 2026 portion of the season with a 6.93-second time in the 60-meter finals then a 22.42 in the 200-meter dash.
Along with Smith's pair of wins, John Raven was able to return to action as well to win the men's 400 meters with a 51.56 before also running a leg of the CU's 4x400-meter relay win that also included legs from Nick Zaprianov, Cord Nietert, and Jake Etherington for the team to run a first place 3:28.86.
The final race win came in the women's mile run when Jaycie Franco posted a 5:36.11 to earn the win by over five seconds while teammate Bridget Bracy ran a 6:04.19 as Bracy also ran a 2:49.56 for a fourth place finish in the 800 meters.
Heading to the jumps, the final three wins for CU came from another men's and women's sweep of the pole vault with Keifer Landes cleared 4.30 meters for the second-straight week to win the men's pole vault while Grace Squires earned a first place finish at a best clearance of 3.15 meters.
Continuing the hot start to his collegiate career, Ja'kobe Kizer earned another long jump victory at a 6.67-meter best jump after setting the school record in the event last week with his 7.08-meter jump at St. Ambrose.
Another strong performance in a two-event day came from senior Isabelle Matthews who finished in second place in the high jump with a 1.53-meter clearance while she also ran the 60-meter dash to a third place time of 8.44 seconds.
The final top three finishes came from freshman Evelyn Folkedahl in the pole vault, earning a runner-up to Squires' win at a 2.85-meter clearance while Etherington ran to a third place 22.88-second third place in the 200 meters along with running a leg in the 4x400 meter relay.
Full Results Here: https://results.adkinstrak.com/meets/56831/teams/1445567
Pride track and field will finish the month of January with their first multi meet of the 2026 portion of the season when they travel to Pella, Iowa for the Dutch Winter Multi on Jan. 29-30.