St. Scholastica wins UMAC Men's Track & Field meet
By Jesse Robinson
MORRIS, Minn. – The St. Scholastica men’s track & field team won its second Upper Midwest Athletic Conference (UMAC) Championship today, hosted by the University of Minnesota-Morris.
The Saints finished with 218 points on the day. Morris was second with 145 points and Northwestern College was third with 137 points. In fourth place was Martin Luther College with 69 points and Crown was fifth with 41 points. CSS Head Coach Kirk Nauman was named UMAC Coach of the Year. The Saints also won the title in 2007.
On the track, the Saints won three titles and broke two school records. The 4x400-meter relay team of
John Greiner (
Fr.-Eveleth, Minn./Eveleth-Gilbert),
Tyler Hassel (
Jr.-Arden Hills, Minn./Grand Rapids),
Jake Turman (
Sr.-Duluth, Minn./Central), and
Alex Tuttle (
Jr.-Duluth, Minn./Central) broke a program and the old conference meet record with a time 3:28.21 seconds to finish second. The 4x800-meter relay team of
Matt Quanrud (
Fr.-Preston, Minn./Fillmore Central),
Ben Turman (
Sr.-Duluth, Minn./Central),
Tony Bye (
Fr.-Chippewa Falls, Wis./McDonell), and
Alan Larson (
So.-Two Harbors, Minn.) won the event with a time of 9:03.79 seconds. The 4x100-meter relay team of
Todd Belger (
Fr.-Bloomer, Wis.),
Wendell Booth (
Fr.-Deer River, Minn./Grand Rapids), Tyler Hassel, and
Garrett Cora (
Fr.-Duluth, Minn./East) finished second, breaking the previous conference record of 43.87 seconds.
Cora broke the previous conference meet record in the 100-meter dash preliminaries with a time of 11.00 seconds. He then went on to win in the finals with a time of 11:05 seconds. Cora was third in the 200-meter dash with a time of 22.78 seconds. Jake Turman won the 800-meter dash, breaking the previous conference record with a time of 1:58.14 seconds.
John Greiner broke the other school record in the 110-meter hurdles with a time of 16.29 seconds to finish third in that event. Greiner was also second in the 400-meter hurdles with a time of 58.65 seconds. Other notable second-place finishes on the day for the Saints were
Lukas Olson (
Fr.-Grantsburg, Wis.) in the 400-meter dash with a time of 51.62 seconds and
Nick Mangan (
Jr.-Brainerd, Minn.) in the 5,000-meter run with a time of 16:23.66 seconds.
In field events,
Tom Lyscio (
Fr.-Baxter, Minn.) shattered records in the hammer throw and shot put to win both events. In the hammer throw he broke school and conference records with a distance of 49.12m, breaking his old record by over four meters. In the shot put, he broke the conference record by tossing it a distance of 14.21m. Lyscio also broke the previous conference record in the discus with a distance of 41.98m good enough for second.
Wendell Booth set both conference and program marks in the triple jump and long jump. In the triple jump, Booth leaped a distance of 13.22m and in the long jump a distance of 6.78m.
Tony Evans (
So.-New Richmond, Wis.) won the javelin with a distance of 46.03m.
Jon Bennett (
Fr.-Blackduck, Minn.) finished second in the high jump, clearing 1.72m and
Cyrus Beckwith (
So.-Saginaw, Minn./Proctor) was second in the pole vault, clearing 3.85m.
The Saints will take part in a few more meets before the end of the season as they will compete at the Minnesota Open on Friday, hosted by the University of Minnesota. The action begins at 4 p.m.