On Saturday, Jan. 23, the Raiders competed at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion against nine other teams, many of which were conference opponents. Despite the negative weather forecast, Northwestern showed up ready to perform after coming out of a strong season debut on Jan. 16.
A number of the team’s athletes placed among the top five in the DakotaDome. Similar to last Saturday, junior Stacey Dietrich and sophomore Shannon Bowar were second and third, respectively, in the 60-meter hurdles. Dietrich ran a time of 9.79 seconds and Bowar had a time of 10.31.
In the men’s division, senior Kyle Sauter and freshman Brandon Hammack repeated their top-five performances as well. Sauter took first place in the 60-meter hurdles running at 8.32, which qualified him for nationals. Hammack came in second in the 60-meter dash with a time of 7.22.
Other members of the team finishing in the top five included senior Ingrid Carlson who ran the 5000-meter run in 19:27.4, placing her third overall. The women’s 4×400-meter team also sprinted into third place with a time of 4:16.51. Taking fourth place in the women’s pole vault was sophomore Jackie Brooks, leaping to a height of 9’8”. The men’s 4×400-meter team finished second with a time of 3:32.03.
Head coach Nate Wolf was pleased with the Raiders and stated, “The team performed well. We took a small portion of the squad due to entry limits at the meet. It was a good second meet for us. We competed well against some bigger NCAA Divion I schools like University of North Dakota, South Dakota State, and University of South Dakota, along with Division II schools like Augustana.”
Next Saturday, Jan. 30, the Raiders will compete at the MSU Open in Mankato, MN.