The Northwestern men’s and women’s track and field teams came home from the Minnesota State Open in Mankato, Minnesota, this past weekend with six first place finishes.
For the Red Raider women, freshman Rebekah Muilenurg took first place in the 600-meter run, nearly four seconds ahead of the second place runner. She clocked in at 1:37, meeting the NAIA Nationals qualifying provisional mark. Taking the lone silver for NW was the distance medley relay team of Katie Bosch, Lauren Spranger, Katie Landhuis and Sarah Lunn. Spranger and Landhuis also earned third place finishes for the Red Raiders in the 400-meter run and the 800-meter run, respectively, each meeting NAIA Nationals qualifying provisional marks.
On the men’s side, the Red Raiders were powered by four individual first place finishers and one relay champion. The distance medley relay group consisting of Kyle Anderson, Elliott Johnson, Ryan Weitgenant and Tim Rose took home top honors with a time of 10:27. NW’s team of Peter Hollinger, Aaron Lemon, Caleb Benzing and Peter Smith placed second in the same event.
The NW middle- and long-distance runners produced all four first place finishes throughout the weekend for the men’s team. In the 600-meter run, Johnson, a senior, earned first place after edging freshman NW teammate Hollinger by less than a second. NW finished 1-2 for the third time of the meet when Anderson won the 800-meter run with a time of 1:58.75 and was followed by teammate Elliot Stoltz who finished in 2:03.
NW had an abundance of success in the mile run as three sophomore Red Raiders finished in the top five. Leading the charge with a time of 4:22 was sophomore Tim Rose. Rose was closely followed by Tanner Goetsch, who finished fourth by edging Peter Smith by nine-hundredths of a second.
Junior Will Norris also came out on top in the 3000-meter run for NW, clocking a time of 8:45 and beating the second-place finisher by more than eight seconds.
Placing second for NW was senior Weitgenant, who met an NAIA Nationals qualifying provisional mark in the 1000-meter run, and the 4×400-meter team of Aaron Lemon, Austin Krier, Elliot Johnson and Levi TeBrink.
The Red Raiders will return to the track tomorrow as they head to the Dennis Young Classic hosted by Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, Iowa.
