- Kendra De Jong clears a height in the NWC field event meet on Thursday.
It was a great day for the Northwestern track and field teams at the annual Sioux City Relays last Friday and Saturday, April 16-17.
On the women’s side, freshman Kendra De Jong won the high jump for the third straight meet with a jump of 5’6. Sophomore Danie Fry surpassed the NAIA provisional qualifying mark in the discus, placing fourth with a throw of 137’8. Freshman Jana Olson vaulted 10’0 to capture fourth place in the pole vault, while De Jong added a fourth-place in the 400-meter hurdles with 1:05.56. De Jong was also a member of the 4×400-meter relay team that placed fourth. The team of junior Stacey Dietrich, freshman Ana Morgan, junior Krystina Smith and De Jong ran a time of 4:00.78.
The distance medley relay ran to a fifth-place finish with a time of 12:43.23. Team members were junior Jenna Sorensen, sophomores Liz Stevens and Teresa Scholten and junior Charity Miles.
Freshman Brandon Hammack had the top finish for the Raider men, placing fourth in the 100-meter dash with a final time of 10.99 after running 10.97 in the preliminaries. Hammack then joined freshmen Mark Johnson, Rick Te Grootenhuis and Taylor Hoekstra to place fifth in the 4×400-meter relay with 3:22.48. The 4×200-meter relay team of Johnson, Te Grootenhuis, and juniors Tim Vermeer and Jeremy Sheppard placed sixth with a time of 1:33.28.
Sophomore Mark Mineart cleared 6’2.25 in the high jump to tie for seventh place. Freshmen Jordan Vermeer and Adam Potter and seniors Nick Tjeerdsma and Andy Norris combined for a time of 11:09.5 in the distance medley relay and finished in seventh place.
On Friday, April 16, sophomore Shannon Bowar competed in the heptathlon at Doane relays. She placed fourth overall, setting the school record with 3506 points and qualifying for nationals. Her best event of the seven was the javelin, which she won with a throw of 99’9.
The Raiders will compete at the GPAC meet in Hastings, Neb., next Saturday. The USF Last Chance Invite will be held on Saturday, May 8, and the NAIA Outdoor Championships will begin on Thursday, May 27.
National qualifiers so far include junior Breann Rozeboom (1:31.42) and senior Ingrid Carlson (1:31.5) in the half marathon, De Jong in the high jump (5’9), Miles in the 5000-meter run (17:47.53), Fry in the shot put (42’8.5) and Bowar in the heptathlon.
Provisional qualifiers are senior Angela Wiggins in the half marathon (1:34.16), Fry in the discus (137’8) and the 4×400-meter relay team of Dietrich, Morgan, De Jong, and Smith (3:59.3).
