The Purple Aces gear up for their final meet of the indoor season
Co-hosted by Valparaiso and UIC, the Purple Aces will see full Valley competition for the first time all season. UE has raced against a handful of MVC teams in Indiana State, Belmont, Southern Illinois, Murray State, and Illinois State. But it will be Evansville’s first time seeing Valpo, UIC, Bradley, Northern Iowa, Drake and Missouri State. In the pre-championship poll, Murray State was picked to be the winning team on the women’s side while Indiana State was picked on the men’s side. The Aces finished 12th and 10th in each poll respectively.
UE heads into indoor championships at 24th in the Great Lakes Region on the men’s side and 32nd on the women’s side according to the most recent USTFCCA weekly rankings. On the men’s side Evansville holds 8 top 20 positions in The Valley with four top 11 spots in the field and on the track.
On the track, Cedrik Flipo leads in the 800m at an 8th place spot with his time of 1:52.86 set at the PNC Bank Bellarmine Classic. Flipo also aids the 4 x 400 Relay team where they sit 5th in The Valley. In the field Zach Dove and Jayden Hayes in the weight throw with matching distances of 17.83m. While Zach Dove also put up a top-20 performance in the shot put with a distance of 15.53m. For the women, the Aces are led by Nicole Prauchner in the 800m who sits 9th in the MVC with a time of 2:11.99 and also aids in the 4x400m relay’s time of 3:58.59. Freshman Gwen Darrah leads the UE in the field with a weight throw with a distance of 14.45m for 14th in The Valley.
The Aces enter a young and competitive squad into the championship this year. Going into Sunday, UE has 8 events cracking the top 20 all held by sophomores or freshman athletes. Many of those young athletes have set new records for the program, including freshman runner Taylor Johnson (Evansville, Ind. / Reitz HS), Raymond Felton III (Houston / Clear Brook HS), and Flipo. In total, Evansville has set 18 program records across track and field events.
The Aces last competed at the Indiana State Open where the men had their highest team finish of the year in fourth while the women finished seventh. The most succesful race for UE was the women’s 800-meter race, where Nicole Prauchner (Neuhofen an der Ybbs, Austria) earned first place with a meet record of 2:13.51. Kalina Urbaniak (Suchy Las, Poland) and Eilen Brenne (Skien, Norway) also set meet records with times of 2:17.04 and 2:17.48 respectively. Nayla Martin (Vaudreuil-Dorion, Quebec, Canada) also finished in the top five with a time of 2:19.03 for four top five finishes in the event.
