University of Rio Grande

Featured Athlete

Kyle Hively

Men's Indoor Track & Field

January 20, 2010

Hively qualifies for indoor nationals

Cedarville, OH--- While the rest of his teammates were gearing up for the indoor season opener at the Mike Hout Invitational, University of Rio Grande senior race walker Kyle Hively was competing at the Cedarville Indoor Invitational on Friday.

Hively, a native of Vinton, OH, did well enough to qualify for the NAIA Indoor National Championships on his first try. Hively finished 8^th in the 3,000-meter race

walk and hit a qualifying time of 15:26.83. He also scored four points for the RedStorm with the finish. He was the only Rio competitor at the meet.

Rio Grande assistant coach Matt Boyles, who is a four-time national champion in the race walk and has just barely missed making the U.S. Olympic team twice, accompanied Hively to the meet at Cedarville. "The race walk is a specialized event, so you have to pick and choose your meets and we did actually open up the day before (the Capital Meet) at Cedarville and we do have our first national qualifier in Kyle Hively," Boyles said. "He's going back to the national championships with what he did here at Cedarville."

Hively made his mark in this event last year as he qualified for the national meet in both indoor and outdoor seasons. He finished 10^th in the indoor meet last year

with a time of 14:23.27. He will get the opportunity to better that finish this year at the indoor championships, March 4-6 in Johnson City, TN.

The outdoor distance was 5,000-meters and Hively finished 14^th at that meet with

a time of 25:31.78 last season.

Boyles said that Hively and the rest of the race walkers on the Rio Grande squad will get another shot to compete later in the year. "We're going to take the rest of walk crew to Ohio Northern for the USA/Ohio Association Championships and that will be February 14."