Pioneers Begin Outdoor Track and Field Season at Washington University Invitational

The University of Wisconsin-Platteville men's and women's track and field teams began the outdoor portion of their schedule on Friday and Saturday at the Washington University Invitational in St. Louis, Missouri.

The Pioneer men posted 101.50 points for first place honors in the 32-team field.

The Pioneer men were victorious in three events including Ben Farrell, who broke the school record in the 400-meter run with a time of 47.72. The performance is the second fastest to date in NCAA Division III in 2012. He also ran a leg on the fourth-place 4x400-meter relay team. Also, the Pioneers were victorious in the 4x100-meter relay with a time of 41.70. Three members of that team placed in the top 10 in the 100-meter dash including Aaron Hrubes (third, 10.85), Lynn Oyawiri (sixth, 11.09) and Jordan Olp (ninth, 11.12).

T.J. Valley led a pair of Pioneers in the top 10 in the 110-meter hurdles with a fourth-place finish (15.06), followed by Aaron Loferski, who was 10th in 15.59.

Matt Kocak was ninth in the 1,500-meter run in a time of 4:01.52 and on Friday, Derek Fahrenkrug was 10th in the 10,000-meter run in 31:50.47.

The UW-Platteville men also performed well in the field events as Mark Niemann won the javelin with a throw of 173-1, followed by a third-place finish by Daniel Poh (169-10) and 10th-place performance (159-2) by Evan Buck.

In the pole vault, Jared Bradfish and Chas Spangenberg finished second and third, respectively with identical clearances of 15-5 with places being decided based on number of misses. Matthew Felten was seventh with a clearance of 13-11 ¼. Andrew Kissner tied for second in the high jump with a clearance of 6-4 ¾ and John Egan tied for eighth with a clearance of 6-2 ¾.

Also, in the throws, Jacob Dailey was third in Friday's hammer throw competition with a toss of 177-9 and fifth in the shot put on Saturday with a throw of 48-3 ¼. Plus, Jake Wiederholt was fourth in the discus (144-1) and in the shot put (48-5 ½); in addition, Jon Petrie was seventh in the discus with a toss of 138-0.

The Pioneer women were led by Deidre Dillman, who won the 800-meter run in 2:16.02. On Friday, Danielle Kunkel was fifth in the 5,000-meter run in a NCAA provisional time of 17:54.97.

UW-Platteville's Mary-Katherine Kladar and Caitlin Thomson tied for eighth in the high jump with identical clearances of 5-3.

The Pioneer women's 4x400-meter relay team was fourth in a time of 4:02.98.