Girard places ninth, Lee and Hokanson advance to finals on day one
Geneva, Ohio - The University of Wisconsin - Platteville track and field team began the first day of competition at the NCAA DIII Outdoor Track and Field Championships hosted by Mount Union at the SPIRE Institute.
Geneva, Ohio - The University of Wisconsin - Platteville track and field team began the first day of competition at the NCAA DIII Outdoor Track and Field Championships hosted by Mount Union at the SPIRE Institute.
To begin the day, following a short lightening delay, three Pioneer men competed in the discus. Alex Girard finished in ninth place with a throw of 48.51m (159-2). Freshman Ben Veverka and junior Alexander Walechka threw 44.00m (144-4) and 43.50m (142-8) respectively.
In the preliminaries of the 1500m run, senior Zach Lee crossed in 3:52.22 to qualify for the finals. Lee holds the fastest time moving into the final heat to be run on Saturday. Also moving on to finals, Matt Hokanson cruised over the 400m hurdles in 53.33 seconds. Hokanson holds the ninth fastest time in preliminaries.
Senior Katie Wardinski put the finishing touches on her final season as a Pioneer, running the 10,000m run in 38:28.58.
The 4x400m relay of Alec Burcham, Paul Rapp, Zach Frei, and John Huntley ran 3:16.82 in the preliminaries, taking 13th place.
Cody Faust concluded day one of the decathlon event. Faust competed in five events, accomplishing personal best marks in two events. Faust ran a wind-aided personal best time in the 100m dash, running 11.27 seconds. An eight-centimeter personal best fell in the long jump for Faust; he jumped 6.98m (22-11). In the shot put, Faust threw 11.60m (38-0.75), and in the high jump Faust cleared 1.84m (6-0.50). To end the day, Faust competed in the 400m dash, running in at 51.90 seconds.
Day two of the championships will begin at 10am Friday morning with the decathlon 110m hurdles. Rachel Beuthin will throw shot put and Noah Steiner will compete in the men's high jump. Charlie Gifford will take on the preliminaries of the 110m hurdles. Johanna Meister and Zach Lee will take on the 800m preliminaries.