Big Day One Sets Up Showdown Between A-Sun Heavyweights

Kennesaw State and ETSU are notorious for bringing the best out of each other in the Atlantic Sun Indoor Track and Field Championship. Of the past seven league championship, the Buccaneers have taken four titles and the Owls have taken three.

After day one of the indoor championship, KSU stands on top by 16.5 points, but head coach Andy Eggerth knows to never get comfortable when it comes to the battle between the two.

“ETSU has been performing awesome as well, we know that it’s going to be a dog fight to the end. It will be interesting to see how it shakes out,” Eggerth said.

The Owls marked an outstanding first day of competition with several personal records broken.

“I couldn’t be more proud of my athletes. They’ve been setting lifetime personal records all over the place.”

Michael Owenby crushed his personal best with a vault of 15’7”. Owenby’s vault was nearly three feet better than his best vault last year to claim second place in the event.

Also helping the Owls out in day one was Rob Harvey who took gold in the shot put. His win in the shot put was the first for the Owls since the 2010 Championship, which the Owls ended up winning.

Rasmus Rooks and Nabil Hamid claimed silver for KSU by marking new personal bests in the long jump and 3000m.

Eggerth was ecstatic with his team’s results.

“We had terrific performances all over the place. I can’t even begin to say everyone that came through. There wasn’t just one person that came through, it was a real team effort today and we needed that.”

When looking forward to day two and what it will take for KSU to even the score with the Bucs and grab their fourth title Eggerth put it plain and simple.

“It is going to take perfection.”

Eggerth has worked all season to prepare his team for this moment and now all he can do is hope that it pays off with perfection.

“There’s not going to be any room for error for either of us. We know that we’re going to show up and perform but ETSU is going to show up and perform as well. It’s really going to take perfection and the team with less errors is the team that will come out on top tomorrow. I’m just hoping that team is us.”