Led by four all-American performances, the UW-Platteville men's track and field team finished fourth in the NCAA III outdoor national championships Thursday through Saturday at UW-Oshkosh.
The Pioneer women, with three all-American runs, placed 13th to cap a satisfying weekend for the orange and blue.
"You hope that everybody at least performs to the level they were coming in," Pioneer Coach Jim Nickasch said. "For instance, if someone was seeded fifth, you hope they can get at least fifth. To exceed that at nationals, well, that was just unbelievable."
Tyler Sigl and Marcia Taddy each won a national championship and earned two all-America honors in leading UWP to its big finishes.
The men scored 27 points, tying Mount Union for fourth place. UW-La Crosse rolled to the team title with 99 points, followed by Cortland-SUNY with 34, Monmouth with 28, and UWP and Mount Union with 27.
Host UW-Oshkosh won the women's title with 57 points, while the Pioneers had 19.
Sigl set the Pioneer pace Thursday, winning the 10,000-meter run in 50 mile-per-hour winds and rain. He came back Saturday to take second in the 5,000-meter run in a school-record time of 14:29.22.
"Tyler's 10K was really special, especially in those conditions," Nickasch said. "For him to come back and run like he did today (Saturday) shows he's a gamer. He's just a different kind of animal."
Ben Zizis overcame a slow start to finish third in the 110-meter high hurdles, which Nickasch called a remarkable achievement.
"He was last out of the blocks and still last after the fourth hurdle, then he just turned it on," the coach said.
Zizis finished in 14.90, behind only champion Jonathan Garcia of Mass-Dartmourth (14.58) and Thiel's Dorran Coley (14.83).
Kyle Stangel, seeded eighth in the 1,500, improved to sixth in Saturday's final, running 3:56.20. Pomona-Pitzer's Will Leer, who also won the 5,000, took the 1,500 in 3:53.13.
Taddy, named the NCAA III outoor athlete of the year prior to the meet, won the 1,500-meter run Saturday in 4:27.04, edging North Central's Amber Druien by one-hundredth of a second. UWP's Emma Dreis was third in 4:27.55, giving the Pioneers two of the top three place-winners in that event.
Taddy added an all-American honor in the 800, finishing sixth in 2:11. She is now a 15-time all-American and a six-time national champion.
"The women all did well, too," Nickasch said. "This was just really cool. Lots of good stuff happened."
UW-Platteville's Tyler Sigl beat not only 15 other competitors but a torrential rain and 50 miles-per-hour wind to win the 10,000-meter run at the NCAA Division III national championships Thursday at UW-Oshkosh.
The junior from Seymour used a strong last lap to break away from a tightly bunched quartet of runners and win the national championship in a time of 30:54.18. He finished one second ahead of State University of New York-Cortland's Andy Cloke (30:55.22).
He is the first Pioneer male to win an outdoor championship since Corey Stelljes captured the same race in 2003.
Sigl battled the huge storm that blew across Wisconsin during the afternoon. The day started with temperatures in the 80s that fell about 25 degrees during the downpour.
All three Pioneers who competed in preliminary action advanced through to the finals as well. Marcia Taddy, who was named the NCAA III Athlete of the Year Thursday, and Emma Dreis both made the 1,500 finals on the female side, while Kyle Stangel did the same in the men's 1,500.
Dreis ran the fastest time in the two heats, winning hers in 4:42.59, while Taddy was second in her heat in 4:46.43. The Pioneer pair have the two best times in the country this season.
Stangel had the eighth-fastest time in the 1,500 Thursday at 4:03.85. Both the men's and women's finals are run Saturday.
Taddy and Jessica Scott compete in the 800 preliminaries Friday, while Ben Zizis does likewise in the 110 high hurdles. Those finals are Saturday, as is the 5,000-meter run in which Sigl will compete.
The weather forecast in Oshkosh calls for considerably better conditions the rest of the weekend.
Related Links