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SMU at Blizzard Invite Saturday, Jan. 28 |
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Cardinals give coach 9 reasons to smile with record-setting effort
SUPERIOR, Wis. — The Saint Mary's University track and field season is only three weeks old, but already the Cardinals have given coach Kirk Nauman more than one reason to smile.
In fact, Saturday afternoon at the UW-Superior Invitational,, the Cardinals gave their head coach nine reasons — breaking five school records and shattered four facility records en route to their best performance of the young indoor season.
"What a performance," understated Nauman. "This was a huge day for Saint Mary's track and field. We're at the point in the season where we start looking for individuals to put together some good performances, and we certainly did that today."
The biggest performance of the day came from senior Beth Cleveland (Wausau, Wis.), whose toss of 14.89 meters in the weight throw not only broke the school and facility records, but also earned the SMU senior a provisional qualifying spot in the NCAA Division III Indoor National Championships.
Emily Bartusek (Albert Lea, Minn.) chipped in a pair of first-place finishes, clocked a 12:18.84 to win the 500 in school record-setting fashion, while also winning the 200 with a time of 26.94. Autumn Valk (Appleton, Wis.) posted a double-double in the hurdles, posting school- and facility-record times of 9.32 and 30.06 in winning both the 50 and 200 hurdles, respectively.
Speaking of double-doubles, Katie Boisjolie (Austin, Minn.) and Tera Bollig (Cambridge, Minn.) teamed up to break the school's 5,000 record, as Bollig stopped the clock in a record-setting time of 19:15.10, only to finish a step behind Boisjolie, who now owns the school mark, thanks to a time of 19:08.23.
"We had so many outstanding performances," said Nauman, who also got a facility-record time of 10:37.66 to win the 3,000 from Ellen Koranda (Blue Earth, Minn.), a second-place effort from Amanda Weinmann (Rochester, Minn.) in the shot put (12.28 meters), a third-place showing from Dan Gerber (Belvidere, Ill.) in the 200 (23.56) and third-place leaps of 6.17 meters in the long jump and 12.61 meters in the triple jump from Chris Fisette (Elmhurst, Ill.). "This was a very tough field, and for us to put together a performance like we did is real encouraging.""