CEDAR FALLS, Iowa ñ Two and a half months after battling to the finish at the Missouri Valley Conference Indoor Championships, the University of Northern Iowa men’s track & field team showed the same fight on Sunday at the MVC Outdoor Championships. |CEDAR FALLS, Iowa ñ Two and a half months after battling to the finish at the Missouri Valley Conference Indoor Championships, the University of Northern Iowa men’s track & field team showed the same fight on Sunday at the MVC Outdoor Championships. The Panthers remained in contention for the team title up until the final event before settling for a fourth-place team finish.
UNI scored 157 points to finish fourth in the closest men’s team race in league history, as 11 points separated the top four teams. Indiana State won the team title with 168 points, Southern Illinois was second with 167 points, and Wichita State took third with 163 points. UNI improved 34 points over its total from one year ago.
The Panther women finished sixth with 63 points. Pre-championship favorite Wichita State won the women’s title with 194 points.
The Panthers seemed to receive several bursts of energy throughout the day in their attempt to regain the men’s team title for the first time since 2009. Sam Kranz and Daniel Gooris finished 1-2 in the men’s pole vault in the opening event of the day. Kranz cleared 16-09.25 (5.11m) on his way to his first outdoor Valley title and his fifth All-MVC honor. One day after winning the decathlon, Gooris vaulted 16-05.25 (5.01m) to claim second place.
UNI got off to a great start on the track as well, with the 4x100m relay team of Carlos Anderson, Derek Kramer, Wilmot Wellington and Jarred Herring winning the event in a season-best time of 40.36 seconds.
Herring won his second MVC title in the 100m dash with a time of 10.52 seconds and added a fourth-place finish in the 200m dash in a season-best 21.49 seconds. Anderson followed up his indoor championship in the 60m dash with another All-MVC performance, taking third in the 100m at 10.65 seconds.
Thibault Vandenabeele used a furious kick down the home stretch to take second place in the 1,500m at 3:51.07. A short while later, Vandenabeele once again used a late surge to claim third in the 800m at 1:54.11. Junior Justin Bartels earned a fifth-place finish, clocking in at 1:54.93.
The Panthers’ biggest spark of the day may have come, once again, from their throwers. Late in the afternoon, sophomore Jordan Williams led a UNI charge up the team standings by winning his first Valley title in the discus. Williams’ throw of 182-06 (55.63m) was a personal-best by a margin of 11 feet and now ranks him at No. 4 on the UNI all-time list.
In all, UNI scored 20 points in the discus with a fourth-place finish by Justin Romero, a sixth-place finish by freshman Matt Schiffer and a seventh-place finish by senior Allen Weeks. Romero’s toss of 165-01 (50.33m) was a personal-best by over four feet.
Over the three-day meet, Panther men’s throwers totaled 54 team points and had an All-MVC finisher in each of the four throwing events. The 54 points in the throwing events are the most ever scored by UNI at the Missouri Valley Conference Championships.
“This meet was an absolute blast,” said UNI head track & field coach Dan Steele. “The Panther men and women stepped up all over the place and really made this Championship electric and exciting. The coaches are very proud.”
“With this kind of competitive fire and the terrific recruiting classes we have coming in, the future is very bright,” Steele added.
Women’s Highlights
Senior Holli Hosch took one more swipe at the record books, winning the 800m in an MVC Championships record time of 2:07.37. In breaking the 24-year old meet record, Hosch defended her outdoor and indoor 800m titles. She has now placed in the 800m at eight consecutive MVC meets between the indoor and outdoor seasons.
Junior Olimpia Nowak moved up to No. 2 all-time at UNI in the 400m hurdles, claiming a second-place finish in 1:00.11. Freshman Emily Roberts ran 1:02.81 for sixth place, barely missing out on a spot in the all-time top-five list.
Sophomore Sam Cameron earned All-MVC honors in the 400m dash with her third place finish, running a personal-best 54.92 seconds. That time makes Cameron only the fourth woman in UNI history to run the 400m under 55 seconds. Junior Michaela Brungardt took sixth place with a season-best clocking of 56.39 seconds.
The Panthers’ 4x400m relay quartet of Nowak, Brungardt, Cameron and Hosch took runner-up honors in 3:42.83.
Sophomore Lindsay Gierke improved on her eighth-place finish in the 100m dash from a season ago, this time taking fourth place in a personal-best time of 12.06.
UNI had a season-best effort in the women’s 4x100m relay, as the team of Gierke, Claire Johannesen, Ellen Kindelsperger and Brungardt crossed the line in 47.73 for fifth place.
Men’s Highlights
In the 400m hurdles, freshman Ryan Newtoff used a strong finish to claim third place and All-MVC honors at 53.12 seconds.
Sophomore Josh Madsen used an outdoor personal-best time of 48.78 seconds in the 400m dash to place fourth.
Sophomore Chris Henely claimed fifth in the 110m hurdles in a personal-best 14.44 seconds.
