Drew Klein, a multi event senior on the track and field team at Central, is ranked second in the west, ninth in the country for the heptathlon and 19th in the vault while leading the Great Northwest Athletic Conference (GNAC) in both. E’lexis Hollis, the fifth-year senior sprinter, is tied for third place in the 60 meter in NCAA DII and seventh in the 200 meter.
Hollis also broke the record for the 200 meter. “I’ve been working hard to finally break into the 23s in the 200m, so I did expect myself to break the 200m record in Reno, Nevada, especially because of elevation which means thin air, fast times.” Hollis says. Hollis is working on getting to the top of GNAC and is continuing to strive for sub-23 seconds in the 200 meter.
Klein is currently competing in the indoor track season, during outdoor track he will compete in the Decathlon. Klein, while juggling seven events makes sure to listen to his body. “It takes good time management,” Klein said. “I couldn’t go train for six hours a day to get all the events in, I need to be really smart about what I’m doing and schedule it out with my coach as well.” Klein’s best event to compete in is pole vault, in which he recently tied the school record. Other challenging events he’s currently working on are the high jump and shot put.
Going into multiple events, Klein has a pre-meet ritual just like any other athlete competing, he picks out a playlist and blasts music beforehand. Klein’s post-game ritual depends on whether he did good or bad, ”I’m going to have highs and lows during a multi where I might not do so great in an event,” Klein said. “Or I might do the opposite and have a really good performance, but I have and I use a five-minute rule where I use whatever emotions I have for five minutes after my event.” After the five-minute rule, Klein said he flushes whatever emotions away and moves on to his next event.
Klein is in hot pursuit of becoming an NCAA All-American and is driven to compete in Nationals, he plans to fine-tune his better events such as pole vault and hurdles. As the indoor season of track and field comes to a close in Spokane on Monday, February 17th at the GNAC Indoor Championships, Klein is focused on his indoor heptathlon events before he switches focus to his outdoor decathlon events.
Hollis is locked into bringing her indoor success to the championship. “You will see me running the 60M and 200M at GNAC. I’m currently tied for 3rd in the 60M in DII, which puts me in a very likely spot to run at nationals. The 200M I’m 7th in DII, which is still very likely to run at nationals, but you never know what could happen with the rankings,” Hollis said. The Wildcats get to show their skills during their home opener Friday, March 7th.
