Pepperdine University
Franson Classic Multi and Track Races
Pepperdine Track Returns to Azusa Pacific for the Franson Classic
4/9/2021 9:11:00 AM | Track
The meet starts at 3 p.m., but sprinters Brandon Davis (Troy, Mich./Troy HS) and William Watkins (Mill Valley, Calif./Marin Catholic HS) will lead things off for the Waves in the men's 400-meter dash at approximately 3:50 p.m. Once again, a handful of Waves will close out the meet with a late-night 5K.
Per APU policy, spectators will not be permitted, but live results can be found on Finished Results.
LAST LAP
Pepperdine aims to build upon last a solid slew of improvements from last weekend at the APU Invitational and Distance Carnival on April 3.
Chief among the bevy of new personal bests and top-five program finishes was Kennedy Kerr's school-record-breaking 100-meter dash. Kerr (West Hempstead, N.Y./Long Island Lutheran) — who hadn't run an outdoor 100 meters since the Black and Gold Invitational on March 9-10, 2019 — broke Pepperdine's record on her third race of the season. In addition to her 11.91, Kerr was less than four-tenths of a second off Pepperdine's 200-meter dash record.
This marks the second school record broken in the short season thus far; Karl Winter (Stockton, Calif./Saint Mary's HS) set the program's 5K record in the first meet of the season on Feb. 13.
Kerr is scheduled to run both the 100 and 200-meter dashes on Saturday.
Over on the distance side, senior Preston Gromer (Casper, Wyo./Kelly Walsh HS) pulled off a significant personal best in the 5,000-meter run with a 14:57.06. Gromer's race was not only a near-30-second improvement over his personal best, but also the first time he broke the 15-minute mark. In that event, he was one of four Pepperdine runners to run under 16 minutes; the other three Waves were Justin Touhey (Stony Point, N.Y./Don Bosco Preparatory HS), Johnathan Flint (Flower Mound, Texas/Flower Mound HS) and Tim Wells (Burbank, Calif./John Burroughs HS). Of that quartet, only Wells is scheduled to run the 5K again this weekend.
Players Mentioned
