After an exciting indoor track season coming to a close, the Northwestern track and field team are excited to now be participating in the outdoor arena for track and field events. The team’s first meet took place at Wayne State University on March 28 and 29. The 60 degree weather offered an advantage that allowed for several athletes to make automatic qualifying marks on the men’s team.
Automatic marks are set at the beginning of the season and if a person or team meets these marks during a normal season meet then they make it to state automatically. The auto mark qualifiers for the NW Raiders for individuals were Braden Kalvelage placing second with a jump of 7.31 meters and Justin Gleason placing third with a 7.26 meters in the long jump, Ben Thelander in the javelin with an impressive throw of 57.02 meters, and team that made the provisional was the 4x100m relay made up of Braden Jahn, Grant Palmer, Vance Hayenga-Johnson and Ashton Sandbulte with a run time of 41.14.
On the women’s team not only had 16 wins that placed in the top 10 places but among those were four amazing performances that resulted in the first place standings. These include the 4x100m relay team with Addison Wierda, Marissa Hackman, Caitlin Ostbye and Emma Blum with a 49.18, 4x400m relay, Emma Blum in the women’s 200m dash with a 26.69 and Kennedy Kramer in the women’s 400m dash with a 57.56.
After this very successful meet the NW track and field team are in good spirits. The Raiders next meet will be at University of South Dakota in Vermillion, South Dakota on April 5 and 6 for the South Dakota Early Bird meet.
Then both the men’s and women’s track and field teams are going to Sioux City to compete in the Sioux City Relays on April 12 and 13. Then the first NW Raider home track and field meet will take place on April 19 and 20. This season is looking to be very successful and exciting to see how far the team goes this year.
