Swept up in the desert heat of America’s Southwest, the Kansas State Wildcats track and field teams delivered a series of record-shattering performances at the Big 12 Outdoor Track & Field Championships. The University of Arizona held the three-day event from May 14-16 at Roy P. Drachman Stadium, where the Wildcats faced intense competition.
Through the grit of the multi-events and explosive speed on the track, the K-State men’s team engineered an exceptional rise. They matched their highest placement since 2021 by finishing fourth overall with 83.33 points — a massive jump from their 11th-place finish in 2025 — but fell four points shy of the team podium. Meanwhile, the K-State women secured a hard-fought ninth-place finish with 43.5 points.
Powerhouse Texas Tech swept both the men’s and women’s team titles.
Ultimately, the Wildcats matched their previous season’s success by crowning three individual Big 12 champions across the weekend — Tah Chikomba, Vanessa Mercera and Selva Prabhu.
The championships opened on May 14 with K-State’s throwing crew immediately setting the tone and picking up a pair of silver medals in the field. On the track, the long hurdles also opened with success.
In the hammer throw, senior Gary Moore Jr. launched a season-best distance of 67.22m (220’ 6”) to claim second place and a silver medal, throwing six feet further than any of his previous competitions this season.
Junior Riley Marx also locked down a silver medal with a second-place javelin throw of 68.75m (225’ 6”), a two-foot improvement over his conference mark last year. Freshman Dorian Charles double-dipped on the day, placing fifth in the individual javelin with a mark of 65.39m (214’ 6”) while concurrently kicking off his decathlon campaign.
The Wildcats flexed their status as the nation’s top-ranked women’s 400m hurdles squad by qualifying three women to the final. Senior Vanessa Mercera led the K-State group in fifth with a time of 57.47 seconds. Freshman Reese Brownlee ran a personal best of 57.77 seconds and moved to No. 9 all-time in K-State records, while senior Jourdin Edwards made it into the final in eighth at 57.98 seconds.
On the men’s side, sophomore Thomas Canivet won his preliminary heat in a spectacular lifetime-best 50.04 seconds, tying him for the No. 2 fastest time in K-State outdoor history.
May 15 belonged to the history books as the Wildcat men exploded for 19 points in a single event, briefly putting K-State into first place in the team standings at the conclusion of day two.
Junior Tah Chikomba punctuated his series in the long jump with a historic fourth attempt. Chikomba soared to 8.27m (27’ 1.75”) with a legal wind of 1.9. The mark smashed his own school record, broke the Roy P. Drachman facility record — which had stood since 1995 — and broke the all-time Big 12 Championship meet record of 8.19m set by Texas’ Marquise Goodwin in 2011.
Behind Chikomba, sophomore Uroy Ryan grabbed the bronze medal with a personal-best jump of 7.94m (26’ 0.75”), rising to No. 6 in the school record books. Freshman Croix DaCunha backed them up with a seventh-place finish at 7.42m (24’ 4.25”).
For the women, senior Aaliyah Lindsay delivered an exceptional personal-best performance while leaping 6.42m (21’ 0.75”) to secure a runner-up silver medal and tie for No. 6 in Wildcat history. Freshman Chisom Nwafor chipped in an eighth-place podium finish at 6.20m (20’ 4.25”).
In the decathlon, freshman Dorian Charles put together a massive point-total PR of 7,748 points to finish as the Big 12 runner-up. Charles won the decathlon javelin event (64.91m / 212′ 11″), took second in the 110m hurdles (14.11 seconds) and placed third in the shot put (13.46m / 44′ 2″). In the women’s heptathlon, freshman Lalie Pouzancre-Hoyer claimed seventh place with a lifetime-best 5,581 points, highlighted by a runner-up finish in the heptathlon long jump (6.07m / 19’ 11”).
Junior Tavon Underwood laid down the fastest qualifying time in the men’s 400m field, winning his preliminary race in a personal best of 45.31 seconds — now No. 4 all-time at K-State.
Freshman Desirae Riehle mirrored the success, winning her heat and qualifying eighth in 52.52 seconds, which is now No. 8 in K-State history.
The final day of the championship saw the Wildcats’ elite athletes execute when everything was on the line, capping off the weekend with dramatic gold-medal victories.
An exceptional performance from Mercera in the women’s 400-meter hurdles highlighted the afternoon on the track. Shattering her previous lifetime best by a full second, Mercera stormed across the finish line in a spectacular 55.39 seconds to capture the Big 12 title. The time erased Ryann Krais’ 2011 school record of 55.68 seconds and secured back-to-back 400m hurdle crowns for K-State.
“Vanessa fought hard off that last hurdle and put more accolades on her resume,” K-State head coach Travis Geopfert said. “Super proud of the fight in that young woman; she never gives up. Big 12 champion and school record holder has a nice ring to it. Another cool note is that it’s now back-to-back Big 12 400m hurdles champions for coach Mat Clark. Huge congrats to him as well.”
K-State’s Jourdin Edwards also scored in the event, taking sixth place at 57.57 seconds.
Over in the field, the men’s triple jump became an instant classic, developing into a heavyweight battle. On his sixth and final attempt, sophomore Selva Prabhu unleashed a winning leap of 17.19m (56’ 4.75”). Though a +4.6 wind assistance negated it from counting as official school or conference records, it firmly secured the Big 12 gold medal.
The victory cemented K-State’s vertical dominance as the Wildcats swept four positions on the leaderboard. Junior Aaron Antoine took fifth at 16.55m (54’ 3.75”), senior Apalos Edwards took sixth at 16.50m (54’ 1.75”) and senior Jhavor Bennett captured seventh with a personal best of 16.40m (53’ 9.75”) — moving him to No. 7 all-time in legal K-State history.
“Selva is such a tremendous competitor,” Geopfert said. “What an epic triple jump. You’d be hard-pressed to see a deeper competition in NCAA history, ever. That whole squad showed up, and Selva capped it off with an epic last jump for the win against some tremendous competition. The young man has no fear and brings it every time. Congrats to him and [assistant jumps] coach Clive Pullen on a hard-fought Big 12 Title.”
The Wildcat women mirrored that success in their jumps. Junior Daniela Wamokpego took home the silver medal in the women’s triple jump with a distance of 13.45m (44’ 1.5”) and true freshman Destini Smith collected the bronze with a season-best jump of 13.42m (44’ 0.5”).
In the men’s discus throw, junior Ricardo Hayles secured a season-best, bronze-medal throw of 57.84m (189’ 9”), etching his name at No. 6 all-time in school history. Senior Gary Moore Jr. followed closely, claiming his second top-eight finish of the weekend with a personal-best mark of 56.90m (186’ 8”) for seventh place.
In the 400m finals, Underwood missed his fresh personal best by just one one-hundredth of a second, clocking a bronze-medal time of 45.30 seconds. Riehle took seventh in the women’s race with a stellar PR of 52.24 seconds — now the No. 4 fastest outdoor time in school records.
Freshmen multi-eventer Zoey Brinker and high jumper Antoine both found their way back onto the podium on May 16, each tying for eighth place in their respective high jump events with Brinker clearing 1.78m (5’ 10”) and Antoine clearing 2.07m (6’ 9.5”).
To close the weekend, both K-State 4x400m relay teams turned in strong performances. The men’s team of Bongumusa Nkosi, Cyrus Ways, Heath Grant and Underwood flew to a fifth-place finish with a season-best time of 3:04.20. The women’s team of Riehle, Ariana Jackson, Anastasiia Kretova and Delaney Brinker locked down sixth place in 3:33.12.
With the conference battle concluded, the Wildcats turn their focus to the postseason trail. K-State’s top-tier qualifiers will travel to Fayetteville, Ark., for the NCAA West Preliminary round from May 27-30, hunting for a top-12 finish to punch their ticket to the NCAA Championships in Eugene, Ore.
