A busy weekend for the ISU men’s track team revealed a lot of promise and also a lot of work still left to be done.

In an ISU Open meet that saw three Cyclone victories and two Cyclone wins from team members competing unattached, many athletes competed in multiple events and showed coach Steve Lynn what they are capable of.

“There were a lot of guys that had double wins and double good performances throughout the meet,” Lynn said.

Jared Graham had perhaps the best pair of performances off the meet, finishing off the winning 4×300-meter relay performance on Friday along with Jared Lewis, James Robinson and Elijah Braimah.

Graham came back on Saturday to win the 600-meter run, leading Robinson to the line to take the top two spots. Graham’s strategy to set the pace paid off and led to a time of 1:12.03.

“It was pretty smooth the whole way, the pace was a little bit slow, but I held it all the way up to about 100 meters left, then I kicked it in,” Graham said. “The time’s not exactly what I wanted, but it’s the first time I ran it in over a year.”

The strongest event for the Cyclones was the 3,000 relay, where Cyclone runners took the top five spots. Blake Boldon won as an unattached runner, followed by Guor Majak, Jayden Russ, Brandon Rooney and Kevin Born.

“I think it was a good start to our indoor season,” said assistant coach Corey Ihmels, who works primarily with distance runners. “The 3,000 was a good place for us to start. I felt like it was a good effort, and we’re ready to kind of get on with the rest of our season.”

Other strong performances for the Cyclones included the distance medley team of Rooney, Robinson, David Lantz and Russ, taking first with a time of 9 minutes, 59.16 seconds, and walk-on Zach Brouiletten who won the shot put, competing unattached for Iowa State, with a distance of 15.41 meters.

Julian Morris took fifth in the high jump, and multi-event specialist Neil Hines competed in the long jump, high jump, pole vault, 60-meter hurdles and the 4×300-meter relay in preparation for the decathlon in upcoming meets.

“Any meet, there’s always things that you look back at and say ‘I wish that would have been better,'” Lynn said. “We had some kids really step up and do some good things.”

The Cyclones head to Lincoln, Neb., next weekend before coming home to compete in the Iowa State Classic on Feb. 9 and 10. Lynn knows the team still needs a lot of work to get ready for those meets, and need notable absences such as Chase Madison and Kiel Uhl to get healthy.

“We’ve got a long ways to go,” Lynn said. “We’ve got to stay healthy; we’ve already got too many injuries.”

Still, the Cyclones will have plenty of chances to put things together.

“It’s the beginning of a long season; hopefully a good season,” Lynn said.