(Photo Courtesy of Ohio Northern)
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| Adam Buss, Tony Kilburg, Cam Klein, Tyler Sigl (Photo Courtesy of Ohio Northern) |
UW-Platteville’s distance medley relay battled from behind to win first-place at the NCAA III Indoor Track & Field Championships with a time of 9:59.71 on Friday at the Ohio Northern University Sports Center.
The relay consisted of senior Cameron Klein (who ran 1,200 meters), junior Adam Buss (400), junior Tony Kilburg (800), and senior Tyler Sigl (1,600), the reigning individual national champion from cross country.
The runners generally kept pace with the front of the pack. Towards the end of the 800-meter run portion, UW-Platteville began working its way to the front, along with Loras and Trinity.
On the bell lap, the battle began between UW-La Crosse, Loras, and UW-Platteville. Sigl, the anchor leg, came with a spurt of energy on the last half to blow the competition away by over two seconds and give the Pioneers the title.
“Our relay did great. We had a crowd around the whole back corner and when we got in the corner it just really pumped us up," Sigl said.
Finishing in second, UW-La Crosse crossed the line at 10:02.04, followed by Williams in third (10:03.94), Wartburg in fourth (10:05.94) and UW-Whitewater in fifth (10:06.88).
Clocking in at 10:07.40 for sixth place was Loras, while UW-Oshkosh was seventh (10:08.15) and Trinity was eighth (10:08.69) for the final All-American spot.
It was the second straight year a Pioneer team won the Distance Medley Relay, as the women were last year's national champion.
UW-Platteville junior Scott Howard earned NCAA III All-America honors by placing sixth in the pole vault at the national championships Friday at Ohio Northern University.
Howard cleared a career-best 16-feet-1 3/4 to earn the honors and also set a new school record. The Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference champion came into the meet with a personal best vault of 16-0 1/2.
By going 16-1 3/4, Howard eclipsed the previous school record set by Dan Schultz in 2004 by one-half inch.
Monmouth's Jonny Henkins won the pole vault title at 16-9 1/2.
UWP's Marcia Taddy, who clocked the fastest NCAA III times in both the mile and 800 runs, was forced out of the national championships by aggravating an injury last week. Taddy, named the Midwest Region Track Athlete of the Year Wednesday, did not make the trip to Ohio Northern.
Jessica Scott, who had the second-fastest time in the 800, easily advanced to Saturday's final in that event. She won her heat in 2:14.09.
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