Concordia Track Finishes Day One at Nationals

by Garrett Suchanek

Junior Lucas Wiechman and the men’s 4×400 meter relay team led the Concordia Bulldogs’ track teams on day one of the NAIA Indoor National Championships.

Wiechman competed in the men’s heptathlon and sits in third place with 2,796 points, just 204 points behind the leader in the event, Doane College’s senior Kale Wolken. Wiechman completed four of the seven events and will finish with the 60-meter hurdle race, pole vault and 1,000-meter run tomorrow.

The men’s 4×400 meter relay team finished fourth in their heat with a time of 3:19.00. The relay team consisted of seniors Jaap van Gaalen and Trevor Bresson, junior CJ Muller and freshman Nathan Matters. The relay team posted the eighth fastest time on the day, which was good enough to qualify for the finals. The finals will be held on Saturday.

Other Bulldogs who competed on the day included junior Alayna Daberkow, who finished in 14th place in the women’s pentathlon. Daberkow scored 2,899 points, just 396 points back from earning a team point for the women’s team.

Sophomore Emily Sievert competed in the 5,000-meter run and posted a time of 18:55.49, which placed her 20th in preliminaries but did not advance her to the finals.

Concordia also had two more teams compete in relay races on the day. The women ran in the 4×400 meter relay and the men ran in the 4×800 meter relay. The women’s 4×400 team missed out on qualifying for the finals by 2.4 seconds and placed 11th. The men’s 4×800 team also missed out on qualifying for the finals by finishing in 11th place as well.

Both the men’s and women’s teams will be back in action tomorrow with the men’s heptathlon finishing and sprint preliminaries and throwing events starting.