Clunis Named Kwik Star Summit League Men’s Track Peak Performer

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Following a 60-meter run equalled by nobody on the national scene, Stephen Clunis walks away from the opening week of indoor track season with some hardware, taking home the Kwik Star Summit League Men’s Track Peak Performer of the Week award. The senior sprinter showed off the burners last Saturday, darting a NCAA-leading 6.61 second time in the 60-meter dash at the Crimson & Gold Invitational.

Clunis’ 6.61 time was a historic one for Kansas City in a multitude of ways. Most notably, it marks the first time a KC athlete, male or female, has ever held the nation’s top time in any event in program history. Secondly, the time went down in the record books as a new Kansas City men’s indoor 60m record, breaking the old program-best he set at 6.65 seconds last indoor season. The Kingston, Jamaica native leads the country by a hair, running 0.01 seconds faster than Darien Lawrence from Florida A&M. Clunis also leads the Summit League by over a tenth of a second and is the only sprinter in the conference to crack the sub-6.7 mark in the 60m. 

For Clunis, it’s his first weekly conference award of the season and his third of his career. Clunis first broke out for the Roos at the season opening meet of the 2024-25 indoor campaign, running a then program-record 6.66 second time at the Bob Timmons Challenge and taking home his first Summit Peak Performer honor of his career. The senior broke this mark at the Tyson Invitational at Arkansas, coming in with a 6.65 second time to reset the program record at the time and earn his second and final weekly honor of the 2024-25 indoor season. 

Clunis will run at the Iowa State Holiday Invitational this weekend, hoping to potentailly be the first men’s runner in the country to break the sub-6.6 mark in the 60-meter dash this season. Kansas City will run at Iowa State and Nebraska, also competing in the Husker Holiday Invitational this weekend.