Personal bests and 100m dash school record fall at Meet of Champions

Rock Island, Ill. – The Pioneer men's track and field team traveled to Augustana College to compete at the Meet of Champions on Saturday, April 21.

Among all the performances, a few season bests came from each event area. On the track, sprinters Ryan Swanson, Paul Rapp, Zach Frei, and Rodrick McMiller shaved off time in the 4 x 100m relay coming in first place with 42.17 seconds. McMiller also shaved time off his season best 100m dash time finishing in first place with 10.61, establishing a new school record. Swanson knocked off time from his season best 200m dash time finishing in 22.68 seconds.

In the middle distance group, Nolan Wallenkamp saw a season best in the 800m run coming in at 1:59.85. In the 1500m, Zach Lee ran a season best of 3:55.47 for second place.

As for the long distance runners, Kyle Herbrand ran the 10,000m run for a personal best time of 31:49.31. Logan Steiner, Matt Smith, and Devin Johnson also ran for personal bests running 31:49.44, 32:24.48, and 33:12.06 respectively. Junior Mitch Muffler ran a personal best time in the 3,000m steeple chase of 9:42.39.

Senior Walker Rynes ran the 10,000m at UW – La Crosse Phil Esten Challenge and took second place running a national qualifying time of 30:20.90. Rynes' time now sits at No. 5 on the All-Time Top Ten List at UW-Platteville. 

The sophomore hurdlers continued to improve and show their consistency in their training. Matt Hokanson finished in third place in the 400m hurdles running a personal best time of 53.90. Cole Gore saw a personal best in the 400m hurdles as well running 56.25 for seventh place. Charlie Gifford ran for second place in the 110m hurdles finishing with a time of 15.20 seconds.

The 4 x 400m relay of Rapp, Kyle Buechner, Riley Bendorf, and Blake DeMunch ran for sixth place clocking a time of 3:23.24.

In the field events, Noah Steiner took second place in the high jump with a clearance of 2.02m (6-7.5). Josh Miller reached a new personal best in the javelin of 50.72m (166-5) for fourth place. Jacob Rice also saw a personal best fall in the javelin with a throw of 48.58m (159-4). In the discus, Cole Eastlick threw a personal best of 47.35m (155-4) for sixth place. Alex Walechka and Branden Drews also threw personal bests in discus, 45.68m (149-10) and 44.95m (147-6) respectively.

Jacob Hirsbrunner and Cody Faust competed in their first decathlon of the 2018 outdoor season. Beginning on Friday, April 20, these two battled through ten events beginning with the 100m dash and ending with a 1500m run. Faust took second place scoring 6,358 points. Faust had a personal best set in the 110 hurdles of 16.03 seconds. Hirsbrunner finished in third place with 6,294 points. He had five personal best set during the course of the two day event. Hirsbrunner had personal bests set in the 100m dash with 11.70 seconds, the 400m dash with 51.06 seconds, the 110m hurdles with 16.98 seconds, the javelin with 43.14m (141-6.25), and finally the 1500m with 4:39.82.

The Pioneer men will travel to UW-Whitewater along with the Pioneer women to compete at the Drake Alternative meet on Saturday, April 28. The Pioneers will be preparing for the WIAC Outdoor Championships to come May 4 – 5 hosted at UW – River Falls.