Women’s Track and Field
Two Blugold members won titles after day one of the 2009 Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Oshkosh. The team sat in third place of nine overall after day one.

UW-Oshkosh led the field after day one of competition with 76 points, while UW-La Crosse was in second with 66. The Blugolds scored 51, while UW-Stevens Point was in fourth with 29.

Junior Hayley Suckow recorded an NCAA Division III Championship automatic qualifying height in the pole vault and she won the conference title. Her vault of 3.82 meters tied for the third best height in the nation this season. Senior Chelsea Becker finished fourth in the same event with a height of 3.42 meters.

Senior Mary Palmer finished in the top spot in the 10,000-meter run with a time of 38:27:01. Junior Hannah Humbach, the defending champion in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, finished in second place with a time of 10:48:15. The mark is a Div. III championship provisional qualifying time.

The Blugold women finished fifth overall in the 4×800-meter relay with a time of 9:44.67. Freshman Brittany Frederick landed in fifth place in the hammer throw with a toss of 48.19 meters, a Div. III provisional qualifying distance. Junior Amy Oldenburg also finished in fifth in the long jump with a distance of 5.19 meters.

Senior Liz Kooistra set the best time in the 400-meter dash with a 57.64 finish, almost a second faster than the rest of the competition.

Men’s Track and Field
The Blugold’s were in fourth place overall with 37 points after day one of competition, while UW-Whitewater led with 56.5. La Crosse finished second with 50.5 and Stevens Point finished in third with 45.

Senior Sam Johnson won a conference title, finishing first in the hammer throw with a distance of 56.79 meters. Johnson’s toss was more than five feet further than the rest of the competition and was the best throw in conference and second best nationwide this year.

Junior Grant Haugan took third place in the long jump with a distance of 6.73 meters. The 4×800-meter relay team also took third with a time of 7:49:36.

Junior Chris Wirtz finished fourth in the 3,000-meter steeplechase with a time of 9:27:28, while junior Max Renner took home fifth with a time of 9:35:53.

Senior Chris Kupfer had the second best finish of the day in preliminaries for the 400 meter dash, finishing with a time of 49.80.

– The Spectator staff