Feb. 4, 2015 By Kali Schmieding
The UW-Whitewater men’s and women’s track and field teams both placed second last weekend at the meets that took place in the Kachel Fieldhouse.
Men’s Track & Field
On Jan. 30, the men’s team placed second out of nine while hosting the Leonard “Squig” Converse Invitational.
The No. 4 ranked ’Hawks totaled 104 points, only falling to No. 3 ranked UW-La Crosse.
“We had a lot of our best people competing at their best events,” senior captain Jared Denu said. “We took second place, which is awesome, because there were three of the top five teams in the nation there on Friday, so it was really good.”
For the men, senior captains Dawson Miller and Denu both took second in their events.
Miller had a time of 4:12.19 in the one mile run, only beaten by six-tenths of a second.
Denu finished the 400-meter dash in 49.31, falling short by four-tenths of a second.
“I took second place and that put me pretty high on the national honor roll right now,” Denu said. “I was really happy with that. It’s good to see early on in the season.”
Junior Eric Baber also took second in the triple jump with a mark of 45-02.25.
Senior Cody Speaker and freshmen Robert Starnes, Mike Cournia and Theron Baumann placed first in their field events.
Speaker tied for first in the pole vault and had a career-best score of 15-06.50.
Starnes took the long jump with a mark of 23-03.25.
Baumann earned first in the shot put with a season-best toss of 55-00.75. Cournia leaped 47-07.75 in the triple jump.
On Saturday, the women’s team placed second out of eight teams while hosting the Warhawk Classic in the Kachel Fieldhouse.
The No. 4 ’Hawks totaled 97 points, only falling to No. 2 ranked UW-Oshkosh.
Women’s Track & Field
For the women, who competed on Jan. 31, junior Tyler Henderson took first place in the triple jump with a leap of 36-06.25.
In the same event, sophomore Aisha Coleman took second with a jump of 36-05.00 and Kaylee Raucci took fifth with a mark of 35-02.50.
“This mark is a great start, but I would like to be jumping further,” Henderson said.
Senior captain Shelby Mahr placed third in both throwing events. In shot put event, Mahr threw a 46-02.00, and in the weight throw event, a 56-05.25.
Sophomore’s Megan Linse and Brooke Linse placed in the top three for the long jump. Brooke took second with a leap of 17-01.50 and Megan took third with a leap of 17-00.00.
Sophomore Nicole McCue placed eighth with a leap of 16-01.00.
Brooke Linse also placed fifth in the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 9.65 seconds
Junior Candice Wayne took second in the 400-meter dash with a time of 1:00.76.
Sophomore Meredith Heller placed sixth in the same event with a time of 1:01.57.
Junior Megan Buse and senior captain Amanda Brom placed fifth and sixth in the one-mile run.
Buse had a personal best time of 5:14.56. Brom finished in 5:20.40.
Sophomore Emily Kahl finished fourth in the 5,000-meter run with a time of 18:43.27.
“We have a team with great potential to do great things,” Henderson said. “We just have to stand by each other and cheer each other and I think our season will go awesome. There is so much talent on the team, we just have to use it.”
Both the men’s and women’s team will participate in the Pointer Invitational and Multi. The Multi event will take place Feb. 6 and the Invitational will take place Feb. 7 at UW-Stevens Point.
