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Last Friday Grand View’s track and field team hosted its second annual Grand View Invitational meet. This was the first home meet for the Vikings as well as the first outdoor meet of the season. It gave the team a chance to adjust from indoor to outdoor seasons.

“It’s the first outdoor meet,” Taylor Wells, thrower, said. “And it’s the first chance we all had to show what we have been working on.”

Hosting a home meet brings many advantages. Athletes feel at home, and there are fewer travel problems, but it also comes with some disadvantages. The coaches and administration have more work to do when they host a home meet as far getting the stadium and facilities ready for athletes.

“For the throwing events, we have to measure and paint the sector lines,” head coach Jerry Monner said. “The stadium has to have all the hurdles set out, get all the long jump, high jump, pole-vault pits ready, fill up the water pit for the steeple chase and a lot of little day-to-day things.”

This year’s meet also surprised the coaches with an electricity problem. The day before the meet, the coaches went to check the electricity under the track and realized it wasn’t working. They had to quickly call electricians to come and fix it before meet day. Thankfully, they worked quickly, and everything was working properly by Friday.

This year’s meet was pushed back a day due to weather, but the athletes did not seem to be greatly impacted by the change.

“It wasn’t a scored meet, but we did really well compared to what we were working on indoor,” Wells said. “The runners got good times, and I know field events did really well; we placed pretty much at the top in every event.”

Coach Monner said this is one of the best opening meets the team has had, so he’s looking forward to another good season.

Teams that came to the meet included Drake, Waldorf, Indian Hills, William Penn, Iowa State, Northern Iowa Area Community College, Minnesota State and even some GV alumni. To see how well Grand View did and see a full list of results visit gvvikings.com