Last Friday, February 10th, several bison participated in the David Emery Invitational Track and Field Meet at Boston University. There, they showed many great performances and set new personal bests. Following Saturday, other members of the Bison track and field team competed in the South Dakota State University Indoor Classic.
In Boston, pitchers Kayden Paustian and Cameron Landis continued to have success this season. Cameron Landis took second place in the shot put with a throw of 56'1/2. Kaden Paustian won with a throw of 57 feet, 3 inches. Paustian also placed third in the weight throw with a throw of 62'9 1/2 inches. Following on from a great meet last time, sophomore Blake Nienati won the 60 meter hurdles with a time of 7.89. Logan Mathewy also competed in the event. Mateui finished third with a time of 8.02 seconds.
On the women's side, the 4x400m relay team continues to impress. The relay team moved to fourth place in NDSU history, winning with a time of 3:41.57. The winning relay team consisted of Bailey Dierks, Casey Cooper, Nell Graham and Kendra Kelly. Kelly also won the 200-meter dash in 23.59 seconds. Fellow relay member Bayley Dierks moved up to sixth place in NDSU history and took second place in the 60m hurdles with a personal record time of 8.49 seconds. First place went to junior Sarmata Kolgo who won the 60 meter hurdles with a time of 8.45. Grace Link, who remains the leader in the Summit League, ran a 4:47.86 in the mile, setting a new personal best. Other titles won at the meet included Merideth Spiers taking first place in the weight throw (63 minutes, 10 seconds). In jumping, freshman Arien Birch won the title in the high jump, finishing at 5'7 1/4 inches.
In South Dakota, Julia Gherardi topped the height of 12'9 1/2 inches to win the pole vault title. Junior Jaycee Johansen followed in second place at 12'3 1/2 inches tall. For the boys, Braden Brown won the high jump with a clear time of 6'8″. Michael Haugo took first place in the long jump with a time of 23 minutes, 2.5 seconds. In track, Gabe Miles won the 200. He ran an incredible time of 22.03 seconds in the meter dash and set a new personal record of 48.94 seconds in the 400 meter dash.This weekend, the track and field team will head to Grand Forks to compete in the 400 meter race, which will be held on February 17th. I will be participating in UND's tune-up track and field meet.
