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| Gabrielle Ethier (right) edges Taylor Fry in the hurdles |
UW-Platteville's track and field teams wanted to get out to a fast start Saturday, and perhaps no one personified that more than freshman Lynn Oyawiri.
The former Platteville Hillmen state champion won the 55-meter dash in 6.48 at the Nike/Impact Sports Platteville Open. He was just two-hundredths shy of the 1994 school record set by Brunson Parish.
"I didn't know what to expect at all; I just wanted to do my best," he said. "Usually I know my competition, like in high school. College is a different playground, and I just wanted to do my best and see what happened. I was pretty happy with it."
Oyawiri also proved to be a fast learner. He ran a 6.67 in the preliminaries, but made an adjustment with his arm coming out of the starting blocks and then turned in his near-record time.
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| Lynn Oyawiri runs away with the 55 race |
"We had a little bit of problems in the preliminaries, and we corrected it for the finals," Pioneer Coach Jim Nickasch said. "He just flew in the finals."
The Pioneers won 17 events in the opening meet, which also included men's and women's teams from Mount Mercy and Clarke as well as the UW-Whitewater women. Many former Pioneer all-conference and all-American performers also competed in the open meet.
Mitch Spees was the lone dual winner for the Pioneers, winning the 200 in 23.26 and the 400 in 52.18. Other male winners were Jason Garvens in the 3,000 in 8:48.94; Noah Simon in the 55 hurdles in 8.31; Jon Balciar in the pole vault in 15-1; Ben Brooks in the shot put in 43-7.25; and Corey Digman in the weight throw at 55-3.75. The 4x400 relay team also won its event in 3:23.33.
The female winners were Deidre Dillman in the 400 in 1:00.65; Gina Smith in the one mile in 5:32.01; Jessica Scott in the 3,000 in 10:21.49; Gabrielle Ethier in the 55 hurdles in 9.09; the 4x400 relay in 4:13.11; Calyn Bidlingmaier in the high jump at 4-9.75; Cassie Schneider in the long jump at 15-7.5; and Kim Piggot in the triple jump in 34-5.
"We had some goods, some not-so goods and some in-the-middles," Nickasch said. "We told them beforehand that they had three options: don't show, kind of show up or show up. Some kids did one of each. It wasn't too bad, and we had some really good performances. The 55 went well, and some of the throws were pretty good. With the kids having a month off of training and weather that wasn't really conducise to training over Christmas break, it was not too bad. We did OK today."
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