Due to forecasted inclement weather, the high jump and triple jump, along with the remaining running finals, have been moved indoors to the Watson and Tressel Training Site, where the pole vault already was contested on Saturday.

A majority of the running preliminaries were changed to re-seeded finals on Saturday, giving runners only one opportunity to show off their speed.

If you’re a senior like Collin Harden, it’s also your last opportunity to show up and show out.

“When I heard about the schedule change, my mindset just switched,” Harden said after Saturday’s events. “I have to go off, I have to go off today, I have to do better, I have to step up for my team, because it’s only finals. I only had one chance at it, and that’s all I was worried about.

Correspondent photo / Robert Hayes YSU junior Olivia Jones, left, finishes the 800 on Saturday as part of the heptathlon event in which she set a YSU record with 4866 points.

“When you think about it and you only have one shot, you tend to do things better than you think, just because this really is my last (meet). So you just don’t want to regret anything later in life, so just go hard.”

Harden, a graduate of Girard, took advantage of the opportunity in front of him, winning both the 110-meter hurdles (14.35s) and the 400m hurdles (53.35s), while also finishing third in the 100 (10.73s, a personal best), and anchoring the Penguins’ second-place 4×100 relay team (41.18s). He ran that with Tye Hunt, Christian Ford, and Tobias Hayes (East High School).

Regardless of what happens this afternoon, Harden more than likely competed on the outdoor track at home for the final time.

“It’s still a little surreal, but honestly I’m just happy to be out here again, I’m really just happy to be competing with my team,” Harden said with a smile from ear-to-ear. “Whether that be here at YSU or somewhere else, as long as I have a Penguin on my chest, I’m always going to do what I do.

“It does feel a little bit weird, due to the fact that you come out of high school and you don’t know what to expect, and then all the sudden you’re a senior at your last track meet with your teammates. It’s sad but I’m happy at the same time because I know I didn’t keep anything in my tank. I let it all out there for my teammates, and really not even for myself.”

Harden qualified for the NCAA Regionals in the 400 hurdles earlier in the season, having made nationals in the same event back in the 2019 season.

Over on the women’s side, junior Olivia Jones once again showed her dominance during the outdoor heptathlon, a two-day event that features the shot put, javelin throw, long jump, high jump, 100 hurdles, 200, and 800. She set a school record with 4866 points, winning the event the last two outdoor league meets.

A native of Gloucestershire, England, being a multi event athlete is something more common across the pond.

“I’ve been doing multis since I was 14, and then a lot of the girls have been doing it around that age, so we had a few women that were in the Olympics that were big inspirations, and a lot of us picked it up after that,” Jones said. “My biggest one is Katarina Johnson-Thompson, because she’s the same as me, her throws were never great, and then she got better at throws, then when I came here I did, so she was like someone I wanted to follow.”

Placing in second with 4742 points was Emily Bee, a YSU freshman who hails from Plymouth, a port city within the Devon region of England.

Having a fellow teammate from across the Atlantic has helped push Jones, but she also credits her success this season to a change in training.

“I took a couple months off, then I picked up Crossfit, and I did a lot of Crossfit, and I was going on a lot of runs because I had issues with my shin, so I was trying to cut back on the amount of jumping I was doing to help compensate for that,” Jones said about her routine after the outdoor season was canceled last year. “I think it did help, because when we come in, in the fall, all we do is conditioning, so to have that level of fitness already was really useful.

“When I got to like the technical side of training, I was fit enough to complete it .”

Jones took part in the individual javelin Friday, taking first place with a mark of 43.80 meters, and will look to possibly compete in the high jump this afternoon.

Heading into the final day of the league meet, the YSU women lead with 166.5 points over Milwaukee’s 96. On the flip side the Milwaukee men hold a slim lead with 160 points, versus the 157 points the YSU men currently tallied.