Kal Lewis stepping up in college competition: Impressive finishes for freshman in Big Ten events

Former Shelter Island track star and Iowa University freshman, Kal Lewis, continued his impressive running Saturday in Big Ten competition with his third consecutive lifetime best performance at the University of Nebraska Husker Quad Indoor Track Meet.

Nine athletes from Iowa, Nebraska, Illinois and Minnesota answered the starter’s gun in the 800-meter run (5 yards less than half a mile). Running on the Corn Husker state-of-the-art Bob Devaney Sport Center’s 200-meter banked oval track, fellow Hawkeye, Alex Still, opened a commanding lead through 400 meters.

Lewis came through the first 400 meters in 57.2 seconds in fifth place.

Giving up a little ground in the third 200 meters, Kal came back with a strong sprint over the final lap passing 4th place Phil Hall (1:54.41) of Illinois and narrowly missing second place Will O’Brien (1:54.13) at the finish line.

Lewis’ time for third place was 1:54.38—-his best by six seconds. 

After the race, Lewis said, “I should have pushed harder in the fourth lap. I made a move on the two Nebraska guys, but backed off. I should have gone by. I had too much left at the finish.”

Iowa’s junior, Alex Still, never gave up his early lead winning in 1:51.96.

Lewis came back 30 minutes later to run a strong 51.5 second 400 meters on the Iowa’s ‘D’ 4X400 meter relay.

The ‘D’ team was a group of distance runners who ran the relay as a training run, not Iowa’s elite ‘A’ 4X400 relay squad, which won the meet with a sizzling 3:09.5.

“I give Coach Hasenbank all the credit for my progress”, Lewis said. “He takes a personal interest in every athlete, knows our goals and builds a program that will get us there. He has really helped me”.

This weekend Lewis will run the mile on Iowa’s home track in another Big Ten event at the Hawkeye Invitational, where he hopes to improve on his 4:14 personal best time from two weeks ago.