FHSU Athletics
NEW ORLEANS - The Fort Hays State men's indoor track and field team moved up one spot to ninth in the latest USTFCCCA National Rating Index, released Tuesday by the coaches association.
The Tigers accumulated 68.29 points in the computerized poll, just 1.36 points behind eighth-ranked Mississippi College. FHSU still has six performances that rank in the top 10 in the country, including Jacob Clark and Ryan Stanley in the pole vault (t-second, 17-2.75), Ethan Lang (eighth, 1:51.16) and Trever Medina (10th, 1:51.69) in the 800m run, Nolan Churchman (eighth, 5,303 points) in the heptathlon and the 4x400m relay team of Lang, Medina, Churchman and Hayden Albright (eighth, 3:14.81).
The men jumped two spots to fifth in this week's central region rankings, while the women now sit in ninth in the region.
Event squad rankings were also released for the first time this season, with FHSU placing six squads in the top 10 nationally, including three each from the men and the women. The men's 800m team leads the country, while both the men's heptathlon and the women's decathlon squads are second-best in DII. The men's pole vault crew ranks third, with the women's 60m hurdles unit slotted fifth and the women's 5,000m group ranked seventh.
With just three weeks to go before the MIAA Indoor Championships, the Tigers are slated to continue their preparation this weekend at the Bearcat Invite on Thursday (Feb. 2) and at the Washburn Open on Friday and Saturday (Feb. 3-4).