Huskies close out GLIAC Championships
CALEDONIA, Mich. – Michigan Tech's Katherine Jarvis broke the school record in shotput Friday as the Huskies finished three days of competition in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference outdoor track and field Championships. The men tied for sixth place (with Wisconsin-Parkside) with 36 points. The women's team took ninth place with 18.50 points. While Tech finished below expectations overall, they had several notable individual performances. Grand Valley State finished at the top of the standings with 300.50 points from the men and 248 points by the women.
"Honestly, it wasn't our best showing," said head coach Kristina Owen. "It's the days that are a little bit rough that make us appreciate the great ones that much more. Even when we were off of our best as a team, we still had athletes who performed exceptionally well."
In shotput, Jarvis crushed her previous best (12.12 meters) and marked 13.01 meters to surpass previous recordholder Jenn Burns, who was on hand to witness.
Freshman Jamie Hendrickson continued to impress in the High Jump and three women cleared 5'2 1/4" and went out on their next height. Maddie Campbell from Northern Michigan took fifth place because she had the fewest overall attempts, placing Hendrickson sixth. "Scoring points at GLIAC championships as a freshman is a big accomplishment and we're very proud of her," Owen said.
The men's team had a great day in the 1500 meters. Sam Lange and Logan Lukonic both made finals, then went on to take sixth and seventh place respectively. Luke Moore narrowly missed joining them in the finals by just .29 seconds, but dropped his personal record time by four seconds for the second week in a row.
Sam Fuhrman and Toby Bonner had strong showings in men's Javelin and scored points at fourth and seventh place respectively.
The Huskies had mixed results in steeplechase. Team leader Braden Reichl had a provo qualifying time, but missed the mark for qualification at the NCAA meet. "Braden's time of 9:23.13 is good, but not enough to make it to the big show," Owen said. "He's put in a great year of training and he's got the fitness, but he's also just a little burned out. We've decided to not race him at the "Last Chance" meets so he can start his off-season recovery and come back for the cross country season hungry again."
Reichl's teammate Nate Carey just graduated and had a great finish in his last ever collegiate race, dropping his personal best by a full 10 seconds to 9:27.46.
"Emily Byrd, our top dog on the women's side, didn't get the time she was looking for in the 10K," said Owen. "She was on track through about 3K, but it's a really long race. By 8K her pace had slipped back considerably, and she wasn't able to bring it back. An off day for her is still really fast running by most standards and was good for fifth place and a time of 37:21.63. She will go to the Last Chance meet next weekend hopefully she can drop that time enough to make it to the NCAA Championships."
The 2019-20 GLIAC Championships were canceled. The Husky men took fifth place in 2018-19 with the women sixth. Michigan Tech will compete in the Hillsdale Last Chance Classic on Wednesday, May 12. The NCAA Division II National Championships are scheduled for May 27 in Allendale, Michigan.
