(Photo via SJSU Athletics)
By Jose Garcia (@JoseDGarcia__) — Reporter
After two days at the Mountain West Indoor Championships, a pair of Spartans will be competing in the finals on Feb. 26.
Junior track athletes Roman Johnson and Micah Hairston both notched first place finishes in the 60-meter dash and the 60-meter hurdle prelims respectively. Johnson recorded a blazing fast time of 6.68 and Hairston a swift time of 8.03.
Both Johnson and Hairston outlasted a plethora of Mountain West representatives in their field.
SJSU as a team on the other hand, didn’t perform as well. Through two days, SJSU’s group of males compiled 13 points, good for sixth place out of seven schools. Air Force sits atop the standings with 85 points in total.
Other noteworthy Spartan performances came from freshman runner Mehki Evans-Bey for more reasons than one.
Evans-Bey recorded solid numbers in the 200-meter dash prelims, 400-meter dash prelims and helped SJSU secure 4th place in the 4×400 meter relay. He finished 10th out of 17 in the 200-meter dash with a time of 21.83. In the 400-meter dash he performed slightly better securing seventh place out of 15 runners with a time of 48.44.
Evans-Bey’s performance in Albuquerque, New Mexico wasn’t just notable for his results. His experience in the Mountain West Championships became a bit unusual because of unforeseen events.
The first being because of a malfunction in his runner’s block in the 200-meter dash. As Evans-Bey tested his runner’s block, he noticed something was wrong with it. An official later came to investigate the issue and ended up switching out the block for a new one. This caused a few minutes of delay in the event and made Evans-Bey a bit frustrated. Another unfortunate event came when Evans-Bey had a false start in the 400-meter dash. Since he committed this infraction he was disqualified from the event.
Regardless of these mishaps Evans-Bey made his presence known in the Mountain West Indoor Championships with his overall performance.
Roman Johnson and Micah Hairston will return to the Albuquerque Convention Center tomorrow looking to secure some medals and bring them back to San Jose. All action can be followed and streamed live on the Mountain West Network.
