April 29, 2002

Men's Track & Field Team Heads into MIAA Championship Week
Doering Smashes School Mark in 10,000-Meter Run at Drake Relays

Senior Andy Doering (Florissant, Mo./McCluer North) began the stretch run to his senior year in track & field in record-setting fashion.

At the Drake Relays, held Thursday-Saturday in Des Moines, Iowa, the Bulldogs men competed in four events and Doering had, by far, Truman's top performance. He crushed the school record in the 10,000-meter run with his first-place time of 30:11.79, a clocking that's also an NCAA Division II provisional qualifying time. Doering, who beat his previous career best in the event by nearly 46 seconds, was almost 19 seconds faster than the previous Truman record of 30:30.51, set by Rob Jensen in 1992.

Truman's only other competitor in an individual event in the 93rd Drake Relays was sophomore Brian Dzingai (Harare, Zimbabwe/St. George's), who took part in the University & College 100-meter dash on Friday. Squaring off against some of the nation's best Division I sprinters, Dzingai placed fourth in his heat, and missed making the final, with a time of 10.68 seconds.

In Friday's college men's sprint medley relay, Truman placed ninth in 3:28.17. Dzingai, senior Dave Mayhew (Prior Lake, Minn./Academy of Holy Angels), freshman Walter Washington (St. Louis, Mo./Webster Groves) and junior Matt Helbig (Fenton, Mo./Rockwood Summit) made up that Bulldog relay team.

Truman also fielded a team in the college men's distance medley relay, run on Saturday. The team, consisting of Doering, Washington, senior Nick Blackburn (St. Charles, Mo./Francis Howell North) and Helbig finished 19th in 10:32.43.

All told, Mayhew ran in three meets on the weekend. In addition to his Friday action on the sprint medley team at Drake, he finished the 110-meter hurdles in 15.01 seconds for first place at the Simpson (Iowa) Open. On Saturday, Mayhew grabbed another first-place tally in the event with a time of 15.17 seconds at the Missouri-Kansas City Invitational.

On Sunday in Joplin, Mo., the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association decathlon competition got under way. After the first five events, junior Jake Kingery (Monroe, Iowa/Prairie City-Monroe) stood in second place with 3,787 points, while freshman Matt Groeper (Warrenton, Mo.) was fifth with 2,987. Kingery won the shot put and tied for first in the high jump on the opening day of the competition. He's just 51 points behind first-place Aaron Crossley, of Central Missouri State.

UP NEXT: The Bulldog men will head west to Emporia, Kan. for the 74th Annual MIAA Outdoor Championships, which will be held this Saturday and Sunday (May 4-5).

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