Coming off its first second-place finish of the season in the Titan Open on Feb. 4, the women’s track and field team bounced back from its first setback with a commanding win last Saturday at the Illinois College Blue Classic in Jacksonville, Ill. The men’s team placed third out of 10 teams competing in the event.
As usual, a number of Lady Bears runners came up huge in their races, helping the team edge out its Midwestern opponents. Junior Natalie Badowski won the 400-meter dash with a time of 1:00.33. The women’s 800-meter run was a particular highlight for the University, as senior Laura Ehret came away with the title (2:20.85) with freshman Lyuda Shemyakina right on her heels, finishing in 2:26.50. Success came on the field as well, as sophomore standout Morgen Leonard-Fleckman and junior star Delaina Martin won the pole vault and weight throw competitions, respectively.
For the men, success was found as well. Seniors David Skiba, Drew Martin and Karl Zelik took home top honors for the University. Skiba won the 55-meter hurdles in 7.78 seconds, and Martin won the shot put with a throw of 14.47 meters (47-5 3/4). Zelik registered a jump of 13.93m (45-8 1/2) for the win in the triple jump.
Freshman Todd Mawry came in third in the 200-meter dash (23.75) while senior Greg Reindl raced to a second place finish in the one-mile run (4:23.94). In the same event, junior Kevin Kale finished just five seconds behind him for a fourth place finish.
At the same time the Blue Classic was taking place, two representatives of the Bears’ squad, senior captain Brennan Bonner and junior Beth Herndon, represented their teams at the Iowa State Classic in Ames, Iowa. There, Bonner provisionally qualified for the NCAA Championships in the 5,000-meter run with his time of 14:51.61. Herndon, too, turned out an exceptional performance, clocking a season-best time in the 5K race in 18:37.43.
The Blue Classic and the Iowa State Classic stood as good warm-ups for the squads as they now look to the future with their eyes on the UAA Championships in Chicago on March 3-4 and finally on the NCAA Championships a week later on March 10-11.