Women’s Track Earns Runner-up, Men’ Claim Third Place
by Garrett Suchanek
The Concordia track and field team competed in the 2016 GPAC Indoor Track and Field Championship on Friday and Saturday.
Three Concordia athletes competed on Friday, the opening day for events.
Sophomore Alayna Daberkow competed and finished in seventh place in the pentathlon, while juniors Lucas Wiechman and Thomas Matik competed in the heptathlon.
Daberkow earned her seventh-place finish with a total of 3,116 points, just 367 points behind the event winner, Paige Hervert of Doane College. Daberkow’s seventh-place finish put the women’s track team on the scoreboard by claiming two team points.
On the men’s side, Wiechman and Matik competed in four of the seven events on Friday. Wiechman headlined the heptathlon for the Bulldogs and sat in second place, only 214 points behind Kale Wolken of Doane College. Matik was in 12th place with 2,196 points at the end of the day on Friday.
On Saturday, the final day of the 2016 GPAC Indoor Track and Field Championships turned out to be a successful day for both the Concordia men’s and women’s teams.
The day started with the multi events finishing in Crete where juniors Lucas Wiechman and Thomas Matik competed. Wiechman continued to shine and claimed a second-place finish in men’s heptathlon while Matik finished 12th. Wiechman’s second-place finish gave the men’s team eight team points.
The rest of the GPAC track and field events took place at the Bob Devaney Sports Center in Lincoln. The women’s team earned a runner-up finish while the men’s team finished in third place.
On the women’s side, the Concordia women’s team finished as the runner-up with 140.833 points, while the champion, Doane College, finished with 201.833 points. Despite a runner-up finish, the Bulldogs turned in impressive performances.
Senior Kim Wood was named the most outstanding female athlete after breaking three meet records and totaling 41 team points for Concordia. Wood competed as an individual in four events and also ran on the 4×400 relay team. Wood won all four of her events (600-meter run, 800-meter run, 1,000-meter run and the mile run) and broke the meet record in the 600 (1:32.92), 1,000 (2.57.00) and mile (4:51.41).
Junior Kali Robb also broke a meet record in the women’s weight throw by throwing 62’ 1 3/4”. Seniors Stephanie Coley and Kattie Cleveland also competed in the weight throw and finished third and fifth place respectively.
Coley did not stop with a top-three finish in the weight throw, but also claimed first-place honors in women’s shot put by throwing 48’ 1 3/4”, which is a new school record. Robb and sophomore Samantha Liermann took third and fourth place in shot put as well.
Another event that was dominated by the women’s team was the pole vault. Freshmen McKenzie Gravo, Allison Brooks and junior Cynthia Mick claimed first, second and fifth place respectively.
On the men’s side, Concordia finished in third place with a team total of 112.5 points. Doane College claimed first-place honors while Nebraska Wesleyan took second place.
Juniors CJ Muller, Zach Lurz and senior Cody Boellstorff highlighted the day by claiming first-place honors in the 600-meter run, shot put and weight throw respectively.
Muller won the 600-meter run with a time of 1:20.83, just 1.63 seconds off of the meet record. Lurz’s hurl of 59’ 3 1/2” was good enough to break the meet record in the shot put. Boellstorff continued to dominate in the weight throw and threw a new school record of 68’ 10 1/2”.
Both men’s and women’s teams will compete in the NAIA Indoor National Championships in Johnson City, Tennessee, on March 3-5.
