Schilling breaks 400m hurdles school record on day one of WIAC Outdoor Championships

Platteville, Wis. - The WIAC Outdoor Track and Field Championships, hosted by UW-Platteville, kicked off day one on Friday. The Pioneers competed in a spattering of preliminary events and a handful of final events on day one. 

Sophomore Katie Schilling ran a personal best in the 400m hurdles preliminaries, cruising into the first seed at 1:02.66. Schilling's time established a new school record for the women Pioneers and ranks her in the top 12 nationally in NCAA Division III. Schilling also ran in the 100m hurdles, where she ran 14.94 seconds and is seeded sixth going into the final heat tomorrow.

Three Pioneer men advanced to the 110m hurdle finals; Matt Hokanson, Charlie Gifford, and Sean Komro. Hokanson and Gifford are seeded at No. 2 and 3 respectively, and Komro is seeded ninth. Komro also advanced in to the finals of the 400m hurdles, running 55.83 seconds in the preliminaries. Freshman Grady Rielly ran a personal best time in the 400m hurdles, running 57.14 seconds. 

Making it into finals of the 100m dash to be contested on Saturday, Gwen Orr ran 12.57 seconds, a lifetime best time. Orr also qualified to finals in the 200m dash, running 25.76 seconds. Orr is seeded fourth in the 200m dash. Zach Frei, narrowly missing the finals of the 100m dash, ran 11.01 seconds to take 12th place. Frei took 13th place in the 200m, running 22.51.

In the men's 400m dash, senior Alec Burcham ran a personal best time of 48.52 seconds to make it onto finals. Burcham is seeded second going into the final heat Saturday. Freshman John Huntley ran 49.87 seconds, breaking 50 seconds for the first time, to come in 11th place. 

Johanna Meister ran 2:14.18 in the 800m preliminaries, a lifetime best time, and will compete in the final heat of the 800m Saturday. Meister's time leads the field in the WIAC heading into day two. Senior Zach Lee ran in the men's 800m preliminaries and advanced on with the second best time, 1:51.19 which happened to break the conference meet record. Nolan Wallenkamp ran 1:54.52 and Alex Wittmershaus ran 1:55.76, a massive personal best. 

As for the final results on the day, Danielle Nelson, Kirstie Ramsey, and Anna Drazkowski ran personal bests in the 3,000m steeplechase. Nelson ran 12:18.84, Ramsey ran 12:33.95, and Drazkowski ran 12:42.94. Zach Klokow ran over a ten second personal best in the men's 3,000m steeplechase. Clocking 9:34.52, Klokow came in tenth place overall.

In the 10,000m run, sophomore Brenna Kautz ran a personal best time as well. Kautz finished in 41:29.01, 16th among a field size of 21 runners. Kyle Herbrand finished in eighth place for the Pioneer men in the 10,000m run. Herbrand ran a time of 31:23.62 breaking his personal record by about four seconds. Logan Steinhoff ran for tenth place with a time of 31:43.35

Finishing in sixth place, Brittany Ehlen pole vaulted 3.46m (11-4.25). Rachel Beuthin finished in 11th place in the women's hammer throw. Beuthin threw 44.19m (145-00). Brianna Hall threw in the women's javelin, finishing in 14th place. Hall threw 30.00m (98-05). 

In the men's field events, sophomore Alex Girard finished in eighth place in the hammer throw with a throw of 49.17m (161-4). Jacob Rice finished in tenth place in the javelin with a throw of 47.88m (157-1). Freshman Jack Soda finished in 12^th place in the pole vault with a jump of 4.32m (14-2).

Cassandra Meyer contested day one of the heptathlon, completing the 100m hurdles, high jump, shot put, and 200m dash. Meyer performed personal best marks in three of the four events, hurdling 19.44 seconds, and shot putting 9.11m (29-10.75), and running 27.65 seconds in the 200m.

Cody Faust finished up day one of the decathlon sitting in second, behind UW-Eau Claire's Dylan Cooper. Faust ran a personal best 11.39 seconds in the 100m dash. He jumped a personal best height in the high jump, 1.88m (6-02). A third personal best mark on the day came in the 400m, where Faust ran 50.75 seconds. 

The Pioneers move on to day two of the WIAC Outdoor Track and Field Championships, beginning at 11am with the decathlon 110m hurdles.