{"id":3615,"date":"2025-03-21T03:12:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-21T07:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/?p=3615"},"modified":"2026-03-25T10:24:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T14:24:08","slug":"the-youth-of-marshall-track-fields-sprinters-aim-to-have-big-outdoor-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/2025\/03\/21\/the-youth-of-marshall-track-fields-sprinters-aim-to-have-big-outdoor-season\/","title":{"rendered":"The Youth of Marshall Track & Field\u2019s Sprinters Aim to Have Big Outdoor Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marshall Track & Field Preview
\nBy Ben Anderson<\/a>, FM88 Sports
\nMarch 20, 2025
\nHUNTINGTON, W. Va. (WMUL-FM) \u2014\u00a0For Marshall track & field\u2019s sprints group, what stands out the most is its depth with its high number of underclassmen.<\/p>\n

One of the returning stars on the men\u2019s team in sophomore Isaiah Harper said that the progression of the underclassman has been smooth thus far.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen them progress a lot,\u201d Harper said. \u201cIt\u2019s crazy some of the progression when you see them first come in and they’re not used to it at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we\u2019re more than half the way done and it\u2019s looking pretty routine to them,\u201d Harper said. \u201cThey\u2019ve bought in and put in the extra work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harper said that the biggest strength of leading the team is the power of positivity.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just try to be positive, uplift people,\u201d Harper said. \u201cIt\u2019s very hard work sometimes. So whether that\u2019s just making jokes or just letting them know that everybody\u2019s here for a reason.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the freshman male sprinters who stood out in the indoor season was Joey Bloebaum. Bloebaum set the second highest team mark in the men\u2019s 200-meter dash and placed less than a second behind record holder Randy Moss.<\/p>\n

Bloebaum said that the biggest lesson he learned during the indoor season was working on the mental aspects of track.<\/p>\n

\u201cI learned to just focus on myself in the race and not really worry about anything outside of it,\u201d Bloebaum said. \u201cWhen I first opened up the 21.80 in the first meet, I started getting nervous throughout all the other meets.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFinally locked back in, (during) the final meet with me and God,\u201d Bloebaum said. \u201cWas able to run so freely in that. Going into outdoor season its really just to stay calm, composed, and continue going into it with God and keeping the nerves away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leading the way for the women\u2019s team is sophomore Dezire Gee, who set top five marks last season during outdoor in the 200 and 400-meter hurdles.<\/p>\n

\u201cI plan to continue working on those (200 and 400-meter hurdles),” Gee said. \u201cI feel like I\u2019ve gotten stronger as an athlete. Feel like I\u2019ve gotten better as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI started my indoor season out really well also,\u201d Gee said. \u201cI just feel like going into outdoor, its where I came from, it\u2019s more of me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Thundering Herd brings in a few mid-season transfers including Bay\u2019Andria Hodges, a female sprinter from Tennessee Tech.<\/p>\n

Hodges said that her main focus in training has been on the technical work.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy block on starts have never been explosive nor the best part of my race,\u201d Hodges said. \u201cHaving the coaches that actually sit down and go step-by-step. Your first step is too short, your arm (is) going outward instead of inwards, you\u2019re not bringing your hands all the way up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving a coach that breaks that down and shows you doing it and shows you how to correct it definitely helps a lot,\u201d Gee said.<\/p>\n

Marshall track & field starts the outdoor season on Friday with the Hurricane Invitational hosted by the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Fla.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marshall Track & Field Preview By Ben Anderson, FM88 Sports March 20, 2025 HUNTINGTON, W. Va. (WMUL-FM) \u2014\u00a0For Marshall track & field\u2019s sprints group, what stands out the most is its depth with its high number of underclassmen. One of the returning stars on the men\u2019s team in sophomore Isaiah Harper said that the progression<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1074,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,5],"tags":[901,140,430,429,115,900,100,660,617,616,69,898,899,659,614,606,28,138,251,718,612,610,236,717,613,611,23,212,661,615,605,51,96],"class_list":["post-3615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-wmul-sports","tag-bayandria-hodges","tag-ben-anderson","tag-ben-anderson-marshall","tag-ben-anderson-wmul","tag-college-radio","tag-dezire-gee","tag-fm88-sports","tag-herd-tf","tag-herd-track","tag-herd-track-field","tag-huntington-wv","tag-isaiah-harper","tag-joey-bloebaum","tag-marshall-tf","tag-marshall-track","tag-marshall-track-field","tag-marshall-university","tag-marshall-university-athletics","tag-sbc","tag-sbc-tf","tag-sbc-track","tag-sbc-track-field","tag-sun-belt-conference","tag-sun-belt-conference-tf","tag-sun-belt-conference-track","tag-sun-belt-conference-track-field","tag-thundering-herd","tag-thundering-herd-athletics","tag-thundering-herd-tf","tag-thundering-herd-track","tag-thundering-herd-track-field","tag-wmul","tag-wv"],"acf":[],"fimg_url":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1074"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3615"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4620,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3615\/revisions\/4620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/wmul\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}