Falcons Head to Meets in New Mexico, Iowa

The Air Force track and field team splits up for a pair of meets over the Feb. 11-12 weekend. The majority of the squad will travel to Albuquerque, N.M., for the Don Kirby Elite Invitational, while a select number of middle distance and distance runners will head to Ames, Iowa, for the annual Iowa State Classic.

MEET INFORMATION | DON KIRBY INVITATIONAL
The Don Kirby Elite Invitational will be held at the Albuquerque Convention Center – site of the upcoming conference championship meet – on Feb. 11-12. FloTrack will be streaming the meet through its subscription service and scoring will be provided through Live Running Results. Per Albuquerque mandates, masks must be worn inside the convention center.

MEET INFORMATION | IOWA STATE CLASSIC
The Iowa State Classic will take place at the Lied Recreation Athletic Center on the ISU campus. Air Force is scheduled to have runners compete in three different events, but sections/seeding have not been announced yet. The 3000- and 5000-meter races will take place on Friday, while the mile will run on Saturday. The meet, which is free of charge to spectators, will be streamed live on FloTrack through its subscription service and live results will be available via Prime Time Timing.

HERE vs THERE
Three members of the Falcons' travel roster hail from one of this weekend's destinations, although only Ari Martinez (Albuquerque) will be competing in her home state. Fellow Albuquerque native AJ Kedge will be running at the Iowa State Classic in Ames, while Iowa native Grace Proesch (Lowden) will join Martinez at the Don Kirby Invitational in New Mexico.

AIR FORCE IN THE NATIONAL RANKINGS
Three Falcons are ranked among the nation's Top 30 in this week's TFRRS standings, with Sam Gilman holding a pair of placements within the top 25. Gilman is listed fourth in the 5000-meter standings (13:25.17) and 21st in the mile (4:57.52a), while Katie Thompson is ranked 27th in the long jump with a distance of 20'3" and Wyatt Murphy is ranked 28th in the heptathlon with a 5442-point tally.

SQUAD GOALS
With a combined clearance of 26'11¼", the high jump quartet of Collin Schulz, Jake Hall, Philip Hundl and Jalan Rivers is ranked eighth on the USTFCCCA #EventSquad rankings – which are determined by the cumulative season-best marks from a team's top-four athletes on the national descending order list. Air Force has two other squads listed in the Top 20, as the mile (Sam Gilman, Scott Maison, Luke Combs, Bryce Lentz – 16:13.67) and pole vault (Caiden Macktinger, Ethan Gardner, Ryan Brown, Robert Postell – 64'11½") both check in at No. 17.

COMING UP
The Falcons return to the Academy next Friday (Feb. 18) to host the Air Force Collegiate Open – the squad's final tune-up before the Mountain West Championships on Feb. 24-26.

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Players Mentioned

Ryan Brown

Luke Combs

Ethan Gardner

Sam Gilman

Jake Hall

Philip Hundl

AJ Kedge

Bryce Lentz

Caiden Macktinger

Scott Maison

Ari Martinez

Wyatt Murphy

Robert Postell

Grace Proesch

Jalan Rivers

Collin Schulz

Katie Thompson

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