Over the weekend the Will Conway would travel to Nashville, TN to compete in the Music City Challenge hosted by Vanderbilt University. The Floyd Central Senior and University of Tennessee commit would compete in heat three of the mile where he would run a 4:06.86 full mile which converts to a 4:05.43 for the 1600m.
Out of the 93 runners competing in this collegiate meet Conway would take home 23rd and the ninth fastest high school time nationally so far this indoor season. His converted time on this 300m oversized track shaves a few tenths of a second off his previous PR in the 1600m which was from the Floyd Central Sectional last year. At that meet he would run a 4:05.72. This was the last time he would run the event in the IHSAA season as he likely scratched in favor of focusing on the 3200m where he would go on PR with a 8:57.22 at Regionals before placing 4th at State.
The meet would feature 4 runners to run under the 4 minute mark in the mile with the Volunteers representing half of these performances.
University of Tennessee Mile Entries
| place | name | time |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | Dalton Hengst | 3:59.71 |
| 4th | Jacob Lewis | 3:59.83 |
| 5th | Christopher Cherry | 4:00.18 |
| 23rd | Will Conway* | 4:06.86 |
| 32nd | Dawson Welch | 4:08.86 |
Conway is coming off of an impressive cross country season where he would become the state runner-up as well as earn Indiana's best 5K performance of the year with a 14:41.25. His auto berth to NXN would be the cherry on top to cap off his high school XC career.
He ranks 8th all-time in the 1600m and 20th all-time in the 3200m from his performances last year and with the improvement we have seen from cross country it is likely that we will see him continue to move up the lists. With his converted time from this weekend he is only 2.1 seconds off of Lucas Guerra's #2 all-time mark and exactly 5 seconds off of Mudd's all time record for high schoolers in Indiana with his 4:00.43. With this being the first track meet of the year for Conway and over three months of racing still ahead of him, could this be the year we see that record fall?
