The men’s and women’s track and field teams competed in their first home meet of the outdoor season at Rex Foster Twilight Friday, April 4. The weather was not pleasant to the athletes participating as temperatures were in the 40s while being cloudy and winds blowing up to 10 miles per hour.
“You’ve got to prepare for it,” head coach Mike Johnson said. “But you also have to train it and compete in it, because if you just get used to when everything is great and nice, then you don’t know how to handle this kind of stuff.”
In the men’s meet, UW-Whitewater headlined the 100 meter dash with all seven finalists being Warhawks. Freshman Sam Vargas took first place, clocking at 10.64 seconds. Ben Bojar and Carsen Rindt took second and third behind Vargas. In the 200 meter dash, Caleb Beightol took first with a time of 22.09. The 400 meter dash was led by Kobe Chandler placing first with 49.06, and behind him in second was Chris Kalies clocking in at 49.46. Christian Patzka took the 1,500 meter run in his first outdoor meet of the year finishing at 3 minutes 53.04 seconds.
“A lot of the events are somewhat different,” Patzka said of the transition from indoor to outdoor season. “So some of our 800 meters are starting to transition to the 1,500 and some of our, you know, 5k and 10k guys are transitioning to longer events. So it’s just about getting into sort of the progression of the length of some of those events.”
Other notable men’s track results were Marlon Cystrunk placing second in the 110 meter hurdles, Jack Erickson placing second in the 400 meter hurdles, Keegan Bratt winning the 3,000 meter steeplechase clocking at 9:38.97. The 4×100 A and 4×400 B meter relay teams placed first as well.
In the field, Andy VanZile placed first in the long jump, Aiden Neduzak placed first in the triple jump, Logan Frey placed second in the shot put and Marlon Cystrunk placed first in the javelin.
In the women’s meet, UW-Whitewater had seven of eight 100 meter dash finalists as freshmen Dakota Mitchell and Cici Stennett took the event each having recorded a 12.29. Fellow freshman Kelly Huerta placed third with a 12.48. In the 200 meter dash, Kiersten Dellar placed third with a 26.93. Hannah Bilodeau won the 400 meter dash by clocking a time of 58.66. Paige Fassbender took the 800 meter run with 2:18.57 followed by Katie Erb placing second with 2:20.55. Ari De La Cerda celebrated her 23rd birthday by dominating the 5,000 meter run, but all the UW-W runners were pulled, only running half the race. De La Cerda also placed third in the 1,500 meter run.
“I am a big time cold runner,” De La Cerda said. “I love running in the colder temps. Obviously, the wind, a little bit with the breeze, can be a little chilly. But overall, I kind of tend to like the 40s and 50s for racing.”
Other notable track results were Sam Burge and Lena Becker placing second and third in the 100 meter hurdles and the 4×100 meter relay team placed first. In the field, Brynn Fuerstenburg placed third in the high jump, Gracie Holland and Ella Maher placed first and second in the pole vault, Emily Mohs placed second in the triple jump, Ryleigh and Kenni Czarnecki placed second and third in the discus and Kenni placed first and Ryleigh in second in the hammer throw.
The track team will go to UW-Platteville Friday, April 11, and Saturday, April 12, to participate in the UW-Platteville Invitational.
