ALLENDALE, Mich. – The Michigan Tech track & field squads capped the GLIAC Championships weekend highlighted by a fourth-place finish by sophomore Sophia Rhein in the women's 5,000m on Friday afternoon.
In total, the women's team scored 17 points for ninth overall and the men's team placed seventh overall with 22 points. Grand Valley State claimed both the men's (293 points) and women's (287 points) team titles.
Quotable - Head Coach Robert Young
Overall we felt this was a successful conference championship meet and will be a good place to grow from for coming years.
Our women especially showed lots of promise for the future since most of our scorers in this year's meet are underclassmen and will be back for several more of these meets. I'm very pleased that we got two true freshmen into the middle-distance finals as that is no small feat in a league as competitive as ours. We're really proud of how well they've developed as racers this spring and can't wait to see where we can get to with another year of training and development.
We are planning to have a good-sized crew at last chance meets next weekend so hopefully, we will get some more fireworks before the season draws to a close.
Quotable - Assistant Coach Luke Moore
Our team enjoyed much better weather conditions today and a taste of spring. Overall we got valuable race experience at the championship level.
Shaver impressed today as she ran another tactical race to run a massive PR. She will certainly be one to watch in the coming years.
Stefanovsky scored in the 1,500m, which was a great start to his championship 1,500m experience. He has been an 800m specialist for us in the past and this is a good step towards him being a top-level 1,500m runner.
Folkema showed that she will be a threat in the women's 800m soon. Fifth-place in her inaugural GLIAC race is very impressive.
Rhein was among the leaders of the second heat for over two miles before the race broke open and she held onto position to finish just outside of the podium in 17:21.10, improving three spots from her place a season ago.
Freshman Sam Shaver opened the final day of the conference championship, running a personal-best in the women's 1,500m, claiming ninth overall in 4:46.01 for a respectable five-second personal-best. Junior Ingrid Seagren placed 12th in the final with a time of 5:03.56.
Connor Stefanovsky provided two points for the Black & Gold in the metric mile in his first conference final, running 61 seconds and change over the last two laps for seventh-place in a time of 4:00.38. Lucas Seng placed 11th in the field, also running his first conference 1,500m final for the Huskies with a time of 4:06.05.
First-year Grace Folkema had a stellar debut for her first GLIAC Championships, taking fifth-place overall in the women's 800m in 2:14.43, just a half second off of her personal-best set earlier this season.
John Paul Norland ran 1:52.83 to take seventh-place in the men's 800m in a deep field that saw the podium finishers produce sub-1:51 efforts.
The freshman duo of Alex Li and Grace Riddle made their GLIAC Championship debut, taking 25th and 26th in the women's 5,000m, respectively.
The men's 5,000m was just as stacked as the 800m, with the top-five finishers running sub 14:40. Callen Carrier returned to the track following a fourth-place finish in the men's 3,000m steeplechase on Thursday to be the top Husky finisher taking second in the first heat and 11th overall in a noteworthy time of 15:12.10. Donavan Mattson took 12th in the second heat to finish just behind Carrier in 15:15.33.
Freshman Derin Apul made his first appearance at the outdoor conference championships taking 16th overall.
The women's 4x400m relay composed of Brielle Kero, Seagren, Shaver and Folkema took eighth overall in 4:06.94 for a season's-best time in the event.
The men's 4x400m relay ran the fastest time of the season with the team of Broderick Stewart, Austin Smelker, Connor Stefanovsky and Brandon Latta clocking 3:24.64 for seventh overall.
Up Next
The Huskies will look to divide and conquer next week at various last chance meets.
