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Men’s track and field roll at Iowa Open

The Iowa Open was a meet the Hawkeye men’s track and field team should have ran away with. With Bradley University as the only other Division-I team participating, head coach Larry Wieczorek said he viewed the Jan. 15 competition as an opportunity to dominate. And run away with it they did.“We talked about sometimes you go up against Big Ten teams, and it may be a little tougher test, but sometimes it’s not quite that level of competition,” Wieczorek said. “When you have those opportunities, yeah, let’s go out and dominate. A strong performance like this is good for you when you should do that.”

Out of the 10 events in which Iowa entered an athlete, the Hawkeyes finished with nine first places. The 60 meters, which Wieczorek deemed “sensational,” was one of many highlights for the Hawkeyes. Four of the top five finishers were Hawkeyes, including first-place runner Troy Doris.“We knew Troy Doris was a good athlete, but he surprised us a little bit how good he was in that 60-meter dash,” Wieczorek said. In only his second assemble as a Hawkeye, the junior transfer from the College of DuPage stepped up in the absence of top sprinter Justin Austin.Doris, who is officially listed as a jumper, crossed the finish line in 6.83 seconds, 0.7 better than his previous personal best.

“It was a big thing Coach Wiz talked about in the meeting [Jan. 14] was just because everybody is not competing doesn’t mean you have to slack,” Doris said. “If someone is not competing, you have to step up and take that spot for the person that is not there.” The 60-meter hurdles was another solid occasion for Iowa. Jordan Mullen set a personal best with a time of 7.88 seconds while winning the event for the Hawkeyes. The sophomore hurdler was only 0.01 second off the school’s record time of 7.87 seconds. While remaining optimistic about it being early in the season, Mullen was a bit frustrated by his time.

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