The SDSU men’s and women’s track teams both had a strong individual efforts that led to top five team finishes at the Jack Johnson Classic Jan. 20-21 in Minneapolis.

The men’s team finished the indoor meet in fourth place and the women wrapped up the proceedings with a fifth place score.

The standout for the men’s team was Jared Vlastuin, who defended his meet title in the long jump with another 1st place finish. He also made great strides in the high jump. Head coach Rod DeHaven said that Vlastuin is also beginning to come into his own in the high jump event.

“Jared had a really good weekend in both his events. He did some good things in the long jump, and he’s really starting to figure some things out in the high jump. He got a few good jumps at the kind of height he’s going to need to qualify for the (NCAA Championships),” DeHaven said.

The rest of the men also had strong performances, with nine other Jackrabbits earning top ten finishes in their respective events and a fourth place finish as a team.  Michael Krsnak highlighted that group with a second-place finish in the mile run, finishing in 4:09.03.

“The men did alright, but we didn’t go into that meet planning to put the most points possible on the board,” DeHaven said. “If we had wanted to, we could have doubled some guys up on events and really made a run for it, but we eventually decided not to go all out and even left some guys at home.”

For the women, Lora Shearer brought home a victory in the pentathlon after winning both the 60 meter dash and the high jump legs of the event. Shearer also set an SDSU indoor record with 3,597 points in her performance, an indoor record that has stood for nearly 20 years and that DeHaven predicted she would break.

“Lora has been a consistent and steady performer all season. If you look back at previous meets…she has been towards the top of her game. Ashley Odegaard also had a really good weekend finishing third in long jump, and Tera Potts ran really well in the mile.” DeHaven said.

The Jackrabbit women finished in fifth place as a team behind seven top ten performances, but DeHaven said that he is concerned with the long-term outlook for the women.

“On the women’s side, our performances just exposed what we already knew. We aren’t deep enough to challenge NDSU and USD in the conference meet and until we suck it up and train a little harder, we just won’t get to that level.” DeHaven said.

SDSU will continue the indoor schedule with the Bill Bergan Invite Jan. 28, in Minneapolis, Minn.