This past week, the University of Minnesota-Duluth's track and field teams had a great meet to finish on before heading in to the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference Outdoor Championships this week (May 13th and 14th). The teams headed to Hamline University where they competed in the Meet of the Unsaintly.
The women had a tremendous day, having seven first place finishes, many all time best performances and two NCAA II provisional qualifying marks. The first of these qualifiers was senior Carrie Wardell,winning the 1500-meter run (4:34.29), which was an all time best performance in that particular race. The other women's qualifier was junior Megan Stroh, in the women's hammer through with a toss of 50.77 meters. Freshman Kelsi Ring was ended up in second place overall, but set a new school record in the 100-meter hurdles with a time of 14.90 in the preliminary race. Other top finishes for the women include junior Maggie Demulling who ran a lifetime best in the 400-meter dash and won the race (57.24). SeniorAmanda Sunnarborg won the 400-meter hurdles (1:05.66), senior Bridget Hines finished first in the 3,000-meter steeplechase (11:18.67), and the 4x400-meter relay team of sophomore Kirsten Bjork, junior Lexi Williams, freshman Kelly Worthington, and Demulling as they won the race with a time of 3:55.35.
The men also had a great day have two provisional qualifying marks from one individual. Senior John Knebel earned these two NCAA provisional qualifying marks in the 110-meter hurdles (14.60) and the 400-meter hurdles (53.18), both performances being lifetime bests. In the 800-meter race, junior Aaron Gorman finished in second overall with a time of 1:54.25 which was also a lifetime best. In the 1500-meter run, sophomore Cole Toepfer ran his best race ever (4:01.31), and in the 5,000-meter run seniorErik Escher finished in second (14:31.88) with junior Nick Nygaard in third (15:49.42). SophomoreRobert Kostick won the men's 3,000-meter steeplechase (9:45.26). Senior Jason Beutz competed at the Ron Masanz Invitation in Moorhead, Minn., just missing an NCAA provisional mark in the pole vault with his clearance of 4.81 meters (15'09.25"), less than two inches away from a qualifying mark.
Next up for the Bulldogs is the NSIC conference meet in Aberdeen, S.D. on May 13th and 14th.
