Katlyn and Zach take on senior Tim Kelly in this week’s Sports Challenge

The men’s cross country team qualified for Nationals after placing 4^th overall at the NCAA Division III Central Region Championships on Saturday.

The Duhawks finished the meet with an overall team score of 141 to put them eight places behind the third place finishers, Hamline University, and 20 places in front of conference foe, Luther College, as they took home a fourth place finish.

Led by Senior Dan McDermott, the Duhawks placed all five runners inside the top-45 of the field. McDermott, who has led the charge for the men all season, finished 9^th place overall with a time of 25:43. Sophomore Jerry Olp crossed the finish line next for the Duhawks with a time of 25:56 good enough for 21^st place. Junior Austin Steil (28^th) finished with a time of 26:10 and was followed closely by the last two scoring runners: freshman Rob Howe (26:21) and freshman Steve Loran (26:29) who finished 38^th and 45^th overall respectively.

“This is only the 2^nd men’s team in school history to advance to the National Championships,” said head coach Bob Schultz. “They worked so hard this season and I couldn’t be happier for them.”

The team has high hopes for Nationals and will look to build on their already impressive resume they have put together this season.

“We are looking to finish higher than we are ranked and to shoot for a top-15 finish, which is the highest Loras finish ever at the National Championships,” said Schultz.

The women’s cross country team also left Waverly, Iowa on Saturday with a top-ten finish as they finished 9^th out of 27 teams. The Duhawks placed five runners inside the top-85 and ousted Grinnel College by seven places to earn 9^th place honors.

Senior Genna Kinley led the way for the Duhawks with a 20^th overall finish and a time of 22:47. Sophomore Mary Rector finished 31^st overall with a time of 23:13 and Junior Katie Flogel finished 41^st overall with a time of 23:32. Rounding out the scoring for Loras was senior Katie Hemesath (77^th, 24:12) and Sophomore Kellie Wagner (84^th, 24:29). The 9^th place finish does not qualify the Duhawks for the National meet; however, Kinley will represent the team as an individual at the National Championships for placing in the top 20.

“Making it to Nationals is something I never imagined was possible for me,” said Kinley, “I’m so honored to represent my team.”

The 9^th place finish marks the end of a cross country season for the women which included: six top ten finishes and one first-place finish in seven races.

“My teammates have shown such growth this season and we owe that to Bob for his consistent and sensible training and to our assistant coach Mary Bridget Corken for pushing us every step of the way and never giving up on us,” said Kinley.

After having experienced mixed results at the season opener at Coe last weekend, the Loras College swim teams came together at the Monmouth Invitational.

Both men and women came in second, each team beating out five other teams. With a variety of swimmers ranging from seniors to freshman, the Duhawks will use whatever weapons they need to in order to realize success.

On the women’s side, the Duhawks had only one, first place winner with junior Alex Proctor who won the 50y and 100y freestyles. But with numerous second and third place performances, the women reaped enough points to capture 2^nd overall.

“The girls swam really well at the Monmouth invite, we scored 2nd place with a lot of impressive swims from Alex Proctor who placed first, as well as Gabby Gaulke, Desiree Tmez and Evayn Roper who all scored high in the mile too,” said junior Stephanie Czarobski.

In addition to the mile, the women placed 2^nd or 3^rd in a total of 7 events. As one of the core leaders on the team, Steph has high hopes for the rest of the season, “We have a very strong team this year with a lot of talented freshman who will help us break at least two relay records this season.  We have a dual meet against Simpson this Friday, and then Grinnell on Saturday.  Both meets will present a challenge for the team, but we are expecting a lot of fast swims!”

On the men’s side, the story is very similar. The Duhawks came together to place top three in a total of ten events, giving them more than enough points to snag 2^nd place at the meet. Senior Andy Pape had a standout day, grabbing 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd in the 50y, 200y, and 100y freestyles, respectively. With the Duhawks coming in top 3 in a majority of events, it is apparent that the roster is very deep this year, possessing a wealth of young and old talent.

The Duhawks have a busy schedule this upcoming weekend, and have high expectations once again.

Jack Metz contributed to this story

The wrestling team was looking to rally and get a few wins this weekend when they traveled to the University of Wisconsin. While they may have been unsuccessful with a team win, they did have a decent number of individual wins.

The team was faced by two different competitors, the University of Wisconsin Whitewater and Wartburg College. The end result may not have been what they were hoping for, but the coaches found aspects of the teams performance worth praising.

The team was able to put up a few, well earned points. Against Whitewater the team scored a total of eighteen points; however the men from Whitewater ended up besting them by eleven, with a total team score of twenty-nine to our eighteen.

This was one of the better matches for the Duhawks as they posted their best score of the weekend against them. When it came time to compete with Wartburg, the team found a far more challenging opponent. Wartburg was able to defeat the team forty-nine to zero. And yet, although the team was not able to score any points, the time never stopped trying.

In the 149-weight class, Drew Salzman was able to win in decision 2-1 in the tough battle with opponent Brian Lewis. Chris Gansen came out the victor in his 157-weight class, defeating Warhawk opponent Cory Schmidt in a 6-2 decision.

Josh Kirkland defeated his opponent Justin Birschbach by fall at the 4:59 minute mark to give the Duhawks a total of 18 points in the match. Pat Pfantz received the benefit of the forfeit in the 125-weight class.

During the competition between Loras and Wartburg, things did not seem to go our way at all. The team seemed to stumble into a streak of bad luck against Wartburg. They had multiple tech fouls and major calls against them which would put them back a lot. They also had a few forfeits which only set them back further.

In the Duhawks final action of the weekend they took on the host and Division I opponent Wisconsin-Madison where they were able to find victory in one match, while keeping many others close.

Pfantz kept his match in the 125-weight class against Shane McQuade at hand before being defeated in a 9-7 decision. Following Pfantz, Brian Cullen beat his opponent, Austin Hietpas, in the 133-weight class in a 9-5 decision.

Throughout all of this, even though there were no team victories, the team will continue on and will keep training so when the most important matches of the season come they will be ready to claim their victory.

The Loras football team traveled to Storm Lake, Iowa to take on the Buena Vista University Beavers in the final game of the season, losing 28-0 with an injury-depleted roster making the trip across the state.

The loss ends a tough season for the Duhawks and their first under Coach Paul Mierkiewicz, finishing with a 1-9 record overall and winless in the Iowa Conference.

All the scoring in Saturday’s game happened prior to the halftime horn with Buena Vista (2-8, 2-6 IIAC) scoring seven points in the first, followed by 21 in the second quarter.

Buena Vista wasted no time receiving the ball to start the game and driving down the field 77 yards over 12 plays to take the early 7-0 lead on a 5-yard run by running back John Hill.

Loras’ first drive would result in a punt after a rush by Devin Kass and two more by Sean Brennan.

Duhawk senior Eric Meyer came up big on the Beavers second drive, intercepting Bo Darrow’s pass at the Loras 4-yard line. Loras was not able to benefit from the turnover with a mix of rushing from Kass and two passes from Brennan, managing 14 yards.

Buena Vista took advantage of all its possessions in the second quarter converting all three of its drives.

Beavers quarterback Bo Darrow threw second quarter touchdown passes of 10 yards to receiver Larry Marcel and 33 yards to Logan Lehrkamp, respectively, to make it 21-0 before Hill added the second of his two touchdowns on the day, a 14-yard scamper to close out the Beaver scoring at 28-0.

Loras’ best chances came in the second half when Brennan and the Duhawks moved down field thanks to two costly penalties by the Beavers, eventually giving Loras the ball at the Buena Vista 8-yard line. But it ended in a Brennan pass being intercepted on the 4-yard line.

Loras quickly forced the Beavers into a 3-and-out and came up with its second best chance of the quarter when Kass had two rushes of four and 16 yards along with a Brennan pass to receiver Bryce Ewan for 8 yards. The drive came to a halt when Devin Kass fumbled at the Beaver 15-yard line.

Loras was held to 152 yards of total offense; contributions came from Kass, who netted 40 yards on 13 attempts, and Brennan, who completed eight of his 19 passes for 105 yards.

On the other side of the ball the Loras defense allowed 428 yards to the Beaver offense, 149 of those yards coming from running back John Hill.

Junior Brandon Ronan led the team with 13 total tackles, followed by Zach Myers with 12, while junior Mike Canevello and senior Eric Meyer each had one interception on Darrow.

For Loras the game completes the careers for eight seniors who were all recognized last week against Wartburg College during Senior Day — linebacker David Zoeckler, defensive back Eric Meyer, receiver Gavin Kaiser, quarterback Vaughn Gesing, linebacker Zach Myers, tight end Andy Brown, defensive lineman Frank Pereiro, and team manager Kevin Zack. Gesing, Kaiser, and Pereiro were among the injured Duhawks who missed the final game of 2011

After the men’s wrestling team rolled out the mats for the alumni meet, they were ready to start taking on the real competition. There is no better way than to start off at home for your first meet, and that’s exactly what they did.

Performing in front of the home crowd often pumps up the athletes to a higher level of competition, and this meet was no different. The matsmen came out ready to take on anyone that got in their way. Another thing that may have sparked their performance was the fact that for some of the wrestlers, this is their last year to really make it count, and this year gives them to leave their mark on Loras’ history.

With some performances from opponent schools that caught the team off guard, the team lost a few matches early, but there were some glimpses of brilliance from many of the men out on the mats wearing the Loras uniform.

Senior wrestler Pat Pfantz had a very impressive showing on this day. He was able to defeat two opponents in his bracket to make it to the quarter finals, where he was defeated by Jesse Delgado of UI who would go on to win their weight class.

While there were no victories, the team showed that they will be able to perform with the rest of them and even though it wasn’t the best outcome coaches were able to see where the team was at and able to find out what to do for the next tournament all of the opponents that it brings.

The matsmen now look forward to the meet at Elmhurst College and are preparing extremely hard to make the necessary improvements to get them closer to the top of the charts and make their name known among the people in the wrestling world. With sights set high on the season, no one is going to take this meet or any other meet lightly.

This team is led by many upperclassmen and they want this season to be the best. Coaches are always looking for a successful season and they will do whatever they can to make that happen for their team. This year is a year for big things and if they take a little longer to get where they are trying to get then they will be right there for it all. Team sports are called team sports for a reason, it’s the collective effort that makes everything happen.

by Morgan Heim

The Loras College Duhawks took on the Wartburg Knights Saturday afternoon. The Duhawks kept it close, but the Knights would take the victory by a final score of 23-14.