Freshmen Shine at UW-Platteville home meet.
The University of Wisconsin-Platteville track and field teams competed in their second home meet of their season Saturday. The Pioneers claimed the title in eight men’s events and two women’s event with freshmen being involved in four of those ten wins.
PLATTEVILLE, Wis. — The University of Wisconsin-Platteville track and field teams competed in their second home meet of their season Saturday. The Pioneers claimed the title in eight men's events and two women's event with freshmen being involved in four of those ten wins.
Freshman Lee Jepsen nudged a win in the 60 meter dash winning by 1 hundredth of a second in a time of 7.05.
The pioneer's swept the 400 meters claiming the top-3 spots. Freshman Wyatt Thompson claimed the win in his debut 400 meter race for the Pioneers with a time of 50.31. Following Thompson were Adam Lange in 51.45 and Paul Rapp in 51.61.
Freshman Zach Lee claimed his first collegiate win in the 800 meters with a time of 1:57.82, .15 seconds ahead of St. Norbert's Andrew Lemay. Benjamin Rhode ran 1:58.77 and led a pack of 3 Pioneers to round out to top-5 spots in the event. Darren Hudziak and Mark Schmitz crossed the finish in 1:59.39 and 1:59.41 respectively.
Senior Nick Wagner ran away with the title in the 5,000 meters. Wagner crossed the finish in 9:08.23, a 10-second career best.
Sophomore Dan Arnold continued his domination of the Hurdles by winning the 60 meter hurdles for the third straight week. Arnold bettered his previous 60 meter hurdle mark from a converted 8.17 to 8.14. Arnold achieved the mark both in the preliminaries and the finals. Arnold is third on the Division III national qualifying list but owns three of the five fastest times in D3 for the current calendar year. The qualifying window for this year's NCAA Indoor Championships began in early December.
Also claiming his third win in a row was Matt Brendemihl in the Triple Jump. Brendemihl leaped to a season best 45-9.25 jump and continues to lead the WIAC in the event.
In the pole vault the Pioneers came away with the top-4 spots. Former National Qualifier Matt Dwyer claimed the top spot with a 14-10.25 clearance while Parker Nolden and Alex Gasper both vaulted a season best height of 14-4.5 to claim the 2-3 spots respectively. Marshall Trajkovski rounded out to top-4 with a 13-10.5 clearance.
Kyle Whaley came away with the win in both the shot put and the weight throw. Whaley's Shot of 51-9.25 (15.78m) was a season best mark while his weight throw of 54-10.25 (16.72m) was a new career best. Mark Senst also threw a career best mark in the weight throw which earned him second place. Senst's throw was 51-3 (15.62m), almost a 4 foot improvement from last week's performance.
On the women's side, freshman transfer Devan Montgomery anchored the 4x400 meter to a win. Montgomery was joined by Amanda Milne, Briana Iwans and Amber Williams to cross the finish in 4:04.82.
Earlier in the day Williams claimed the win in the long jump with a leap of 18-8 (5.69m), improving her season's best mark by 5 inches.
Sohpomore Briana Iwans finished second, seven hundredths behind UW-La Crosse's Claire Gordee, in the 200 meter in a new career best time of 26.35.
The Pioneers will be back next week at Wartburg with the multis on Friday, Feb. 5 and the full squad on Saturday, Feb. 6.