Marshall Track & Field Recap
By Ben Anderson, FM88 Sports
Jan. 29, 2025
HUNTINGTON, W. Va. (WMUL-FM) — This past weekend, Marshall Track & Field broke numerous school records in the Hokie Invitational at Virginia Tech University.
Leading the way for the men’s team was freshman sprints runner Micah Cotes, breaking the men’s indoor 300-meter dash record with a time 34.54 on day one of the competition.
Director of Track & Field and Cross-Country Keith Roberts says that Cotes work ethic is what stands out about him the most.
“That entire meet he was like an iron man,” Roberts said in an interview with FM88 Sports Ben Anderson. “Did four events day one with a school (record) but then finished day two with a great split on the four by four. His mentality is like that every day, comes in and goes to work and he really wants to be great and take it to the next level and when people do that, it’s great to see them reap the benefits of the work that they put in.”
Roberts said that Cotes shows what it means to be an athlete at Marshall University at a young age.
“He comes in here and does all the things he needs to do every day,” Roberts said. “(He) tries to win every rep, he focuses on his techniques, he focuses on his mental preparation, so he pretty much does thing that an upperclassman would. Doing that as a freshman, if he continues this trend, I think he’ll have a great career.”
The Hokie Invitational was the second meet in a row that Marshall traveled to a power four program.
Roberts said that he has been pleased with the teams’ performances against top competition.
“They don’t have any fear,” Roberts said. “People think in track, it’s just that you line up and you just go. The mind plays a lot into everything you do and if you’re not confident going into your races or your timid that’s going to show on the track. It just shows that they’re willing to rise up to the competition and not have any fear just like a Marshall Track & Field athlete should.”
Leading the way for the women’s team was graduate senior cross country runner Kylee Mastin breaking the women’s 800 and 1k records after racing the women’s 3k in the previous meet at Vanderbilt.
Cross Country head coach Caleb Bowen said that he had planned to put Mastin in the shorter distance to prepare her to be ready for anything at the Sun Belt Conference Indoor Championships in February.
“This weekend was all about speed training,” Bowen said during an interview with FM88 Sports Ben Anderson. “She’s a 3k runner, so we put her in the 800 and thousand just to get work on her speed side of things and we lightened the load a bit last week just to get her ready for that.”
“I think what was most exciting was she felt really good with it,” Bowen said. “She’s been doing the 70–80-mile weeks, to be able to still have those gears, that’s really important as we go into the conference meet to have those gears but also have the strength for that volume so that way she’s able to handle anything.”
The back-to-back Sun Belt Conference Women’s Track Athlete of the Week has now broken four schools record in this indoor season.
Marshall Track & Field returns to action Friday in Louisville, Ky for the PNC Lenny Lyles Invitational.