Indoor Track Update

Kyle Nodarse

The Lawrence University men’s and women’s indoor track teams headed to UW-Stevens Point this past weekend to compete in the Point Invite Saturday for a tune-up race in preparation for their big conference meet this weekend. The invite was heavily competitive, with 13 women’s teams and 15 men’s teams.
The men’s team has competed well in every meet they have attended, despite the fact that they have only one senior on a team of almost 30. They continued to improve in every event again this past weekend.
While there were not a lot of points scored, the men ran hard and extremely well. Junior Mark Sprtel ran a good time in the 1-mile run, completing the race in 4:42.02. Sophomore Kevin Gabrielsen earned a point for the men in the long jump, jumping a distance of 6.20 meters in the preliminaries and 6.17 meters in the finals, good for eighth place. Freshman Nick Kerkman had a strong meet in the shot put. He took 11th place, with a strong throw of 12.75 meters. Both Jesse Peterson and Ben Hartman ran strong races in the 400 -meter dash as well.
The women looked to continue a recent string of success, and this Saturday was no different. With 13 teams competing, the Lady Vikes secured an eighth-place finish behind strong individual efforts from many runners. Sophomore Marva Goodson took third place in both the preliminaries and the finals of the 55-meter dash, with a time of 7.42 seconds. Senior Lisa Ritland followed that up with a strong time of 1:04.56 in the 400-meter dash.
Madeline Steininger continued the strong performance for the women with a time of 9.45 in the 55-meter hurdles and then took first place in the high jump, with a jump of 1.61 meters. Goodson kept the momentum going, following up Steininger’s win with one of her own in the long jump, with a jump of 5.48 meters. The women’s relay teams also decided to join the fun, with an eighth-place finish in the 4×200-meter relay with a time of 1:59.32.
The indoor track teams have another meet this weekend, traveling to compete at the Grand Valley State Big Meet.