‘A tearjerker:’ Wichita State track and field stuns Houston again at AAC Championships
An eternal optimist, not even Wichita State track and field coach Steve Rainbolt could find hope entering the final day of the American Athletic Conference Outdoor Championships.
In a second straight year of the men’s team trying to upset Houston at the conference meet, the Shockers were projected to be 38 points short of the national powerhouse program at the start of Sunday.
No matter how many scenarios ran through Rainbolt’s head before competition started back up in Tampa, none of them ended with WSU hoisting another trophy.
“I want to be a believer every step of the way, but we were 38-point underdogs this morning,” Rainbolt said. “How on earth are we going to make up 38 points? It just seemed out of reach, it really did.”
Rainbolt sure didn’t mind being wrong in his calculations late Sunday evening when the Shockers successfully defended their AAC championship in an even more improbable way than they won it the first time.
Last year, WSU was the underdog to Houston but believed its depth gave the team a puncher’s chance. This year, WSU entered as nearly 70-point underdogs to Houston and was projected behind Cincinnati, too.
Once again, the stunning victory came down to the 1600-meter relay team. With Houston as the heavy favorite in the event, WSU’s quartet of Joakim Genereux, Trace Spires, R.J. Hutchison and J.D. Prinsloo needed to hold their seed of fourth place to clinch the team championship.
But the relay team didn’t settle for fourth — they ran a season-best time of 3 minutes, 10.46 seconds (the ninth-fastest time in program history) to take third and give the Shockers the title in style.
“It was emotional. It was a tearjerker. It was difficult to contain my emotion,” Rainbolt said. “Those guys knew what they were up against, they knew what they had to do and they did it. It was a remarkable performance. I absolutely loved it and I appreciated their spirit, their toughness and the competitiveness those guys showed.”
A total of 22 different individuals helped the Shockers score 154 points, two more than Houston and 14 more than Cincinnati. Perhaps even more impressive, WSU won the team title without a single individual champion, while Houston had six stand on top of the podium.
No one was more valuable to WSU’s title-winning upset than senior Yuben Goncalves, who delivered an effort for the history books — even if it didn’t result in a single gold — this past weekend.
After not jumping at all during the regular season, Goncalves made his season debut in the horizontal jumps and came away with a pair of silver medals in the long jump (24 feet, 3½ inches) and triple jump (50 feet, 0½ inches). The Portugal native scored a team-high 22 points for WSU, tacking on a third-place finish in the 400 hurdles with a time of 51.25.
“Words cannot explain how important Yuben was to our championship,” Rainbolt said. “He’s truly a remarkable competitor and he just had a spectacular meet. That guy shows up and competes. When he goes to the line or stands at the top of the runway, something good is about to happen. That guy is just a gamer.”
WSU once again delivered its annual domination in the decathlon, as Nathan Vann (second), Adria Navajon (third), Hudson Bailey (fourth), Luke Porter (seventh) and Kolby Caster (eighth) helped the Shockers score 22 points and take up five of the eight spots on the podium. Vann’s personal-best score of 7,332 moved him up to No. 7 on the program’s all-time list.
The biggest swing of the meet for WSU happened in the 5,000 race with the Shockers trailing Houston, 142-138, in the team race and no points projected in the second-to-last event of the meet.
Another stellar run from sophomore Adrian Diaz-Lopez, who took second in the 10,000 race, helped swing the team race in WSU’s favor, as the Spain native finished fourth in 14:14.80, followed by senior Clayton Duchatschek (sixth, 14:23.43) and senior Ben Flowers (seventh, 14:26.48). The unexpected 10-point performance gave WSU the cushion it needed to survive Houston’s victory in the 1600 relay.
“This is maybe the most surprising championship that we’ve ever won,” Rainbolt said. “I’m embarrassed to say that because I always try to be an optimist. I’m so proud of our athletes because they never lost faith. They were always believing we could win this thing.
“Now the reality is we did not make up the 38 points, Houston came back to us. It took some help from Houston struggling in some areas, but we had some really great performances and that 5,000 meters was just an overwhelming success.”
Other medalists included Creighton Camp (second in hammer throw, 185-6), Duchatschek (second in steeplechase, 8:52.90), Brady Palen (second in high jump, 7-0¼), Harry Barthelemy (third in triple jump, 49-7¾), Weston Lewis (third, 6-8¾), Joseph Holthusen (fourth in 110 hurdles, 14.01), Blake McCormick (fourth in javelin, 185-0), Toby Penner (fourth in 400 hurdles, 51.28), Matthew Everett (fifth in discus, 175-0), Porter (fifth in javelin, 181-7), Jackson Caldwell (fifth in 10,000, 31:42.60), Ridge Estes (sixth in discus, 171-0), Bryan Haney (sixth in 400 hurdles, 52.12), Bryce Merriman (sixth in 1,500, 3:48.05), Bailey (sixth in high jump, 6-4¾), Flowers (sixth in 10,000, 31:42.81) and Jaleel Montgomery (seventh in 110 hurdles, 14.52).
The 400 relay team of Holthusen, Genereux, Haney and Montgomery beat their seed to finish fourth in a time of 40.62.
In typical fashion, WSU’s point-scorers were littered with Kansas high school recruits in Palen (Beloit St. Johns-Tipton), Holthusen (Bishop Carroll), Camp (Andale), McCormick (Maize South), Porter (Kapaun Mt. Carmel), Lewis (Wheatland-Grinnell), Penner (Berean Academy), Everett (Winfield), Merriman (Maize South), Montgomery (Wichita West) and Caster (Douglass).
Rainbolt is no stranger to a celebratory water dunk, having won a total of 35 conference championships in the span of his illustrious 23-year career at Wichita State.
He didn’t hesitate to label the one on Sunday night, in the sticky Florida heat, the most satisfying yet.
“I’ve been fortunate to be on the receiving end on quite a few of those ice baths at the end of a meet and they’re normally unbelievably cold and unbelievably startling,” Rainbolt said. “But tonight that one kind of felt nice because it was freaking hot down here, man.”
This story was originally published May 15, 2023 at 6:00 AM.
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