At the Midwest Conference Championships at Illinois College this past weekend, sophomore standout Madeline Steininger won the high jump and placed in two other events. She was named one of the Outstanding Field Performers of the meet.Steininger won the high jump with a leap of 5 feet, 3.75 inches and she qualified for the NCAA Provisional. Steininger placed second in the long jump with her best jump of 16-8.75. Steininger almost broke the Lawrence record in the 55-meter hurdles in the preliminaries, and she raced to a 3rd place finish in the finals with a time 9.01 seconds. Steininger helped the women to a 7th place finish in the team standings with 32.5 points.
The Lawrence men finished ninth with six points and were led by sophomore Mark Sprtel’s seventh place finish in the 800 meters in 2:03.61. Senior Mike Pierquet broke the school record, with a Weight Throw of 45 feet, 7.75 inches, breaking his own record.
Junior Rob Lawson had two season personal records in the weight and shot. Lawson finished ninth in both. The Vikes have been led by Coach Jen Jacobsen who took over in 2006. She is a former standout cross-country star from Grinnell College, and she is a native of the Chicago area.
Coming up this weekend is the Last Chance Meet at UW-Stevens Point, and then it is on to the NCAA Division III Championships at Ohio Northern. Reflecting on the season, junior Tatiana Bulat commented, “You cannot reach the heights of a great success by just having fun, you actually need to work hard to get where you want to be in any sport.”
Good luck to all of the running Vikes this weekend!