The Northwestern men’s and women’s track teams competed in the Sioux City Relays last weekend and came home with four first-place finishes.
The women’s 4×800-meter relay team of sophomore Katie Bosch, freshman Rebekah Muilenburg, freshman Kassidy De Jong and sophomore Katie Landhuis earned a trip to the NAIA Outdoor Championships, taking first at the meet, and posting the third fastest time in the nation this season of 9:21.
Also hitting the NAIA Outdoor Championships provisional mark was the NW women’s 4×400-meter relay team of Muilenburg, sophomore Jordyn Oostra, Landhuis and senior Lauren Spranger, earning first place and beating the second-place team from Dordt by four seconds.
For the individual races, Spranger finished first in the 400-meter dash, clipping the second-place finisher by more than a second. Teammate Muilenburg finished third in the event.
Sophomore Tim Rose was the lone champion of the meet for the Red Raider men as he crossed the tape first in an extremely tight 1500-meter race where the sixth place runner was less than three seconds behind him. Senior Ryan Weitgenant finished in third place for NW.
The Red Raider men’s 4×100-meter relay team of sophomore Derrick Akers, sophomore Nathan Wedel, senior Alex Van Roekel and sophomore Levi TeBrink finished second place to a Briar Cliff group by less than a second.
Junior Will Norris rounded out the silver medalists for NW as he finished in second place in the 5000-meter run.
The women’s 4×200-meter relay team of junior Jana Vermeer, Oostra, junior Bailey Kennedy and Spranger finished third, behind teams from South Dakota and Dordt.
The NW men finished third in a trio of other events as well.
Sophomore Peter Smith competed in the steeplechase, finishing just behind a runner from Morningside College.
The men’s 4×200-meter relay team consisting of sophomore Aaron Lemon, junior Austin Krier, Wedel and junior Jordan Strand were five seconds off the first place time set by a team from Briar Cliff.
Lemon, Krier, senior Elliott Johnson and TeBrink also ran for the Red Raider’s 4×400-meter relay team, which rounded out the third place finishes for NW.
The Red Raider men and women will compete at the Red Raider Open, here today and tomorrow at Korver Field.
