UMD Opens Track Season

NSO – NEWS RELEASE

Photos By; Rod Behm

The University of Minnesota Duluth didn’t need to travel far to open its 2014-15 Indoor season at The Opener, hosted by the College of St. Scholastica.

The Bulldogs went 1-2-3 to open the day in the 300 meter run with Connor Behm (36.13) taking first place and establishing a new UMD record in the race, followed closely by Phil d’Entremont (36.23), and Frank Deluca (36.55). Each surpassed the previous fieldhouse record, set in 2011 by UMD’s Daniel Badhwa (’14). The winning continued in the 600-meter as Garrett Benz (1:24.01) edged out a first-place finish.

Mark Emlaw (7.25) picked up a victory in the 60-meter dash, Joey Kolpin in the 200-meter (23.30), John Christian (8.94) in the 60-meter hurdle preliminaries, Josh Peterson (4:34.54) in the mile run, Joey Erickson (2:41.29) in the 1,000-meter, Ted Heikkila in the 5,000 meter (15:46.55), and UMD teams in both the 4×400 relay (3:26.58) (Behm, Deluca, d’Entremont, Benz), and the 4×200 meter relay (1:35.19) (Emlaw, Brandt Hintsala, d’Entremont, Krouse) as the Bulldogs claimed eight first-place finishes in track events.

Jason Lilja claimed victory in the high jump (1.93m) and Nick Krouse in the triple jump (13.37m). In the shot put, Devin Sowers tossed 15.18 meters to edge out a hurler from the University of Wisconsin-Superior.

“Overall the team performed well today, and I am very pleased with their efforts and results,” coach Paul Nisius said after the meet. “The freshmen gained valuable experience today and actually won some races, while the returning members of the team got after it today too and posted some excellent marks.”

The Bulldogs will now be off until Jan. 10 when they head to Minneapolis for the Northwest Open hosted by the University of Minnesota.

The Womens meet began with a second-place finish for UMD’s Mary Ford (42.06) in the 300-meter dash, just (0.07) seconds off the pace of the leader. Erica Kesseh followed that up with a second-place finish in the 60-meter Dash (7.96, -0.19) and another by Madeline Schaeffer (9.35, -0.10) in the 60-meter Hurdles.

Maddison Sachs (3:06.28) picked up the Bulldogs’ first victory of the meet in the 1,000 meter run as UMD went 1-2-3 with Samantha Ekman (3:14.96) and Katerin Ocariz (3:17.75) behind her. Ford, Ekman, Sachs, and Avery Potthoff finished second in the 4×400-meter relay (4:19.42, -2.43).

In field events, Rachelle LeBlanc (3.20m) picked up a victory in the pole vault, while Chane Miller (5.19m) won the long jump. Jennifer Hitchcock (16.10m) and Katherine Avers (15.87m) finished one-two in the weight throw. UMD also had three compete in the penthathlon, as Amelia Maher (first/3,510 points) and Chanel Miller (second/3,485) each topped the fieldhouse record set by Maher in last year’s meet. Miller’s 60-meter hurdle time in the event (8.86) also topped the fieldhouse record, previously held by UMD’s Kelsin Ring.

The Bulldogs will be back in a week at the Northern Michigan University open on Sunday, Dec. 14 in Marquette, Michigan.