The UW-Platteville women, led by Marcia Taddy's two individual titles, earned their most points and their highest finish ever at the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference track and field championships Friday and Saturday at UW-Stevens Point.
The Pioneers finished fourth with 77.50 points, surpassing 70 points for the first time in the meet's history. UW-Oshkosh ended UW-La Crosse's six-year reign to win the team title with 179.5 points.
UW-La Crosse won its fifth straight men's title with 191 points, while UWP was fifth with 52.5.
Taddy held off freshman teammate Jessica Scott to win the 800-meter run in 2:14.28. Scott was right behind in 2:14.81. Both Pioneers earned all-conference honors in that event. Taddy also captured the mile run in 4:58.2, becoming just the third Pioneer female to ever win two events in the same WIAC indoor championship. Crystal Stietz won both the 55-meter and 200-meter hurdles in 1998, and Keri Wells won the 3,000- and 5,000-meter runs in 1999.
Two Pioneer relay teams earned all-conference honors. The women's 4x200 team of Mary Johnson, Alison Ross, Bobbi Arand and Tracy Wilber was runner-up at 1:45.30, a new school record. The men's distance relay squad of Erik Bartelson, Andy Watters, Nate Richardson and Cam Klein took second in a time of 10:13.51.
Also for the women, Johnson (7.37) and Wilber (7.44) were third and fourth in the 55-meter dash; Jackie Mulrooney was third in the 5,000 meters in 17:38.39; Carrie Morschauser fourth in the high jump at 5-1.75; the 4x400 relay team was third, and the distance medley relay team fourth.
Johnson and Heidi Heberlein set new Pioneer marks in Friday's preliminaries. Johnson ran 200 in the 26:01, while Heberlein completed the 400 in 58.23. Both broke school records they already owned.
Among the men's top finishers were Nick Fix (45-10), third in the triple jump; Klein (4:19.14) fourth in the mile; Jim Uppena (58-10.75), fourth in the weight throw; and Nathan Wells (4532 points), fourth in the heptathlon.
"It was a real good meet, especially for the women," Coach Jim Nickasch said. "They qualified for in a lot of events during the preliminaries, and then did well (Saturday). All the relay teams did really well. The guys struggled (in the team standings) without Tyler (Sigl, who is ill), but a lot of others stepped it up."
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