Before UW-Platteville even competes at the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference indoor track and field championships, the Pioneers scored a major victory.
Fifteen-time NCAA III all-American and six-time national champion Marcia Taddy was granted a medical redshirt year from her indoor season at Wisconsin-Madison, making her eligible to run this weekend. Taddy, who earned the U.S Track and Field and Cross Country Association national athlete of the year in both the indoor and outdoor seasons in 2007, was previously only thought to have an outdoor season of eligibility remaining. She competed for the Badgers in 2004 before transferring to UW-Platteville.
"We found out Monday, and the conference office verified the results of Marcia's request, that she would be eligible," Pioneer Coach Jim Nickasch said. "She found out that Division I had changed some medical hardship regulations and changed the number of contests (a student-athlete could compete in before suffering a season-ending injury and still get the medical hardship year). It was retroactive, so she and Coach (Tom) Antczak went back, got all the paperwork and medical records. We'll wild-card her into the meet. The unfortunate thing is it took so long to get it done. She's raced a couple of times, but this will be her first big one."
The WIAC championships are Friday and Saturday at UW-Superior's Thering Fieldhouse.
"We look to be pretty solid," Nickasch said. "We have some very good individuals but not a lot of depth yet. We go into the meet hoping those individuals place real well, and do what they can do. We're looking forward to people doing some good things. You just cross your fingers and hope everyone stays healthy. There's a lot of things going around campus, and we figure we had our dose of that last week. We want to be healthy and ready to go."
The Pioneers already have five individuals automatically qualify for the national championships. Jessica Scott has the nation's fastest time in the 800-meter run, while Tyler Sigl is qualified in the 5,000-meter run and anchors the distance medley relay team that includes Cam Klein, Adam Buss and Tony Kilburg.
Provisional qualifiers include Corey Digman in the weight throw, Ben Zizis in the 55-meter hurdles and the 4x400 relay team of Scott, Liz Baker, Alison Ross and Bobbi Arand. (If not enough athletes make the automatic qualifying marks, provisional qualifiers are added.)
"We've been up and down," Nickasch said of the indoor season. "We've been going in streaks. One weekend we don't look real well, and the next we come back and knock our socks off. The (men's) 4x400 is an example. We ran 3:24 all year long and this weekend we decided to go after it a little more and the guys ran a 3:20.9, and 3:20.5 is provo. So we're right there. We've already qualified the men's DMR and women's 4x400, which hasn't happened in a while. It kind of goes in streaks, and it's been very interesting."