A middle-distance runner qualified for the NCAA Division III Indoor Track and Field Championships this past weekend.

A few other Duhawks came agonizingly close to earning an invitation to the national meet during a “last-chance” meet at North Central College in Naperville, IL. They also turned in some of the best indoor performances in Loras history.

Senior Laura Rieger won the 800-meter run at the North Central meet while tying her own school record with a blazing time of 2:13.66. Her time also qualified her to compete in the national meet this weekend.

“I’m really happy I get to represent Loras this upcoming weekend,” said Rieger. “There is a lot of great competition in the women’s D-III 800, so it feels great to know I ran well enough to qualify. I am very excited to run at nationals; it’s what I’ve been working toward and I am confident all of my hard work will pay off.”

Four other Duhawks made strong bids to join Rieger at the national meet. Senior Tara Kilburg’s time of 5:04.02 in the 1-mile run missed the qualifying mark by just 0.02 seconds.

Fellow senior Danielle McNally “provisionally” qualified in the shot put, but she eventually missed the cut for the top 16 throws in the nation. McNally posted the fifth-best throw in Loras history.

Two of the men also came within an eyelash of qualifying for the national meet. Sophomore Tim Derr set a new school record in the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 8.43 seconds.

Junior Ryan Seymour not only set a school record in the 60-meter dash, he set a “fieldhouse” record at North Central with his time of 7.02 seconds.

Seymour also ran the fourth-fastest 55-meter dash in Loras history and came within 0.04 seconds of qualifying for the national meet.

“It feels great to set a school record,” said Seymour. “As far as falling just short from making nationals, it’s kind of a bummer, but at the same time it feels great to just have made the list. I am lucky enough to still have one more shot at indoor nationals next year.”

Seymour was recognized as the Iowa Conference Athlete of the Week for his efforts.

“I was shocked when (Coach Bob Schultz) informed me,” he said of the conference honor.

Sophomore Caitlin Groeper recorded the second-best high jump in school  history, and first-year Katie Langmeier entered Loras’ record books with the third-best high jump. Groeper tied for first place in the event, while Langmeier tied for second place.

While Rieger heads off to Columbus, Ohio, seeking to become an All-American, her teammates now are preparing for the outdoor season.

“Most of the team is taking advantage of a couple weekends off from competing by getting in some really good training,” Schultz added.

Follow the Track and Field teams on Duhawks.com

Personal records were the highlight of the weekend for numerous members of the men’s and women’s track-and-field teams — they were being broken like they were going out of style.

On Saturday, the track teams competed at the University of Dubuque in their final meet before the Iowa Conference Indoor Championships this weekend in Pella.

No team scores were held for the UD meet, but that didn’t stop several Duhawks from shining brightly. Senior Laura Rieger not only won the 400-meter dash, but she broke the facility record with a blazing time of 59.13.

Meanwhile, sophomore Caitline Groeper placed second in the high jump.

Most impressive of all might have been senior Danielle McNally, who won the weight-throw competition and was the runner up in the shot put. In addition, McNally has qualified to compete in both events at the NCAA Division III Indoor Championships in March.

On the men’s side, sophomore Sean Lewis finished the 200-meter dash with a time of 23.28, which places him among the top-10 all-time best times in the event for Loras.

Coach Bob Schultz previously has lauded a “great of a group of freshmen and transfers who have been a tremendous addition to the team,” and it was seen first-hand this past weekend. First-years Josh Goerdt and John Kawka both added personal indoor bests as they crossed the line together, separated by three-hundreds of a second apart for third and fourth places, respectively, in the 400-meter dash. Both runners finishing the race under 51 seconds.

For some teams, setting personal records would be a sufficient performance, but some Duhawks still weren’t satisfied and took aim at some of Loras’ all-time school records.

Junior Ryan Seymour and sophomore Tim Derr broke into the top three for school indoor records. Seymour achieved his feat with a time of 22.78 in the 200-meter dash. Derr broke into the school record books with a 55-meter dash clocking of 7.90 seconds.

“The team looks focused and excited to do well at the conference meet,” said senior long-distance runner Dain Leytem. “The whole team seems ready and raring to compete.”

The meet serves as a momentum- builder for the Duhawks, who hope to post their best times yet at the conference indoor meet. In the meantime, the onset of the outdoor season also looms in the background.

Schultz said the men’s team has set a goal to finish third at the conference meet, while the women are slightly more ambitious, eyeing a goal of second place.

Follow the Track and Field team on Duhawks.com

The men’s and women’s indoor track-and-field teams already have competed in four meets.

The Duhawks have set the bar high for what they would like to achieve during the season. Under Coach Bob Schultz, the team strives for one thing and that is to ultimately win. Along with what the team already expects, Schultz has set some more specific goals that will garner success for the team.

“Individually, we want to help each of our athletes improve throughout the season and to improve over last year,” said Schultz. “As a team, we are looking for our men and women to finish among the top three in the Iowa Conference and have as many individuals qualify for the national championships that we can get in.”

Setting the main objective to finish in the top three will be a challenge in a conference with tough competition, but Schultz believes these high expectations have been backed up by the performances of his team.

“So far, we are off to a great start,” said Schultz. “We have had a lot of personal records and we have a group of new athletes that have been a nice addition to our team so far.”

Certain individuals have stood out from the rest of the pack including seniors Danielle McNally, Laura Rieger, Tara Killburg,  Sean Campbell, sophomore Caitlin Groeper, and first year Josh Goerdt. McNally is the first team member to qualify for the Indoor National Championships. McNally is not only successful on the track, but at the end of last year she was recognized by the Iowa Conference for her academic achievements.

After a fast start the Duhawks have experienced some recent struggles, but the set back has not shaken Coach Schultz’s confidence in the team. He sees early season struggles as an opportunity for his teams to grow, and trusts his athletes to mature and improve throughout the season.

“They just need to keep working hard and stay healthy,” said Schultz.

If the Duhawks can do this, they will be on their way to elevating their success from where they were only a year ago, and fulfilling those goals set out by their coach.

Michael Higgins
Published: April 22, 2009

DUBUQUE -The Loras track and field team is off to another great start in the outdoor season SportsZone caught up with one athlete who has something new to contribute.

Three Thousand meters, thirty-five hurdles, including six water barriers was the challenge in front of senior middle distance runner Joey Hetland last Saturday at the University of Dubuque Open.

“I’ve never been able to run at conference because we had a pretty stacked mid-distance team the four years that I have been here so I wanted to run the steeplechase in order to do that,” said Joey.

“He was looking for events that weren’t terribly deep in where he could contribute and steeplechase is one of them and he’s a mid distance guy so for an eight hundred runner to say hey I want to do the steeplechase that is quite a step and I’m just proud of him. I think a lot of people take that for granted just running at the conference championship and I think for Joey that would be the icing on the cake for his career,” said track and field coach Bob Schultz.

Moving up in distance from the eight-hundred meter and mile races, Joey has been able to use his cross country experience to adjust. The hurdles were another story.

“I was really nervous about the water pit, I’ve never jumped into one of those before so once I got through those I knew I was alright, I wanted to finish the race after that,” said Joey.

Joey and other Duhawks will be competeing here at the Loras Open this weekend. The event starts at ten o’clock on Saturday morning.

Michael Higgins can be contacted at Michael.Higgins@loras.edu

Michael Higgins
Published: March 25, 2009

Atlanta/Orlando – The Loras track and field team made its way down to Orlando, Florida this spring break. The team was able to bond and train under beautiful weather.

“The team, over this week-long trip, really becomes a lot closer and we start meshing more and more as a team,” says jumps and hurdles coach, Geoff Kaiser, “In regards to the training as well, we can do a week’s worth of hard training in good weather and really get ourselves ready for the outdoor season. That puts us at a big advantage to a lot of the other Iowa Conference schools.”

The team’s trip, which involved a track meet at Emory University, was a great overall experience for each individual athlete.

Junior distance runner, Dan Murphy commented, “The training facilities were great, we got to run on the same track as professionals and see what they do every day. The weather was perfect, we couldn’t ask for much more.”

“It’s really a great treat coming off such a cold winter to be able to come down for a whole week and be able to run in 80-degree weather with palm trees around us and to be able to finish off this meet in this type of weather. This is perfect racing conditions and there’s great competition,” said sophomore distance runner, Dain Leytem.

One outstanding performer at the Emory Invite was sophomore, Tara Kilburg, who ran a winning time of four minutes and thirty-nine seconds in the 1500 meter race.

Kilburg stated, “I was really happy with it for my first race. It was a personal record and I almost provisionally qualified for nationals. Just those two things give me a lot of confidence going into the outdoor season.”

Now that the Duhawks are back in Dubuque they will be hosting the Alumni meet this Saturday at the Rock Bowl.

Michael Higgins can be reached at Michael.Higgins@loras.edu

Michael Higgins
Published: February 18, 2009

PLATTEVILLE –This past weekend the fifteenth ranked men and the twenty-sixth ranked women track teams were in Platteville, Wisconsin for the Nike Impact Sports Invite.

The Loras Track and Field team may be nearing the finish line of their indoor season, but they are not slowing down, with conference right around the corner several men and women boasted their best marks last Saturday.

Head Coach Bob Shultz was very pleased with his team’s performance.

“I think it was a good meet, I know Brian Westemeier had a personal best in the shot put,” said Shultz.

“Obviously our women did awesome in the distance medley relay qualified for nationals broke the school record third fastest time in the country, Mary Bridget Corken ran an indoor personal best in the half and was first place in that we had a lot of personal bests today so it was a good meet,” said Shultz.

One outstanding middle distance runner on the team is junior, Hannah Weiss.

“My biggest achievement so far would probably be qualifying for the 800 for nationals and also the distance medley relay,” said Weiss

Another member of the Loras track team who is having a stand out season is Barb Kremer, currently ranked fifth in the nation in the fifty five meter hurdles.

“My achievement personally is that I qualified for the national meet which was one of my big goals, another goal was to run an 8.40 and I accomplished that today by running an 8.34,” says Kremer.

With conference only two weeks away Coach Schultz holds high expectations for both the men and women teams.

“Well the way things are looking right now I think both teams will be able to reach their goals, the guys’ goal is to win, I think we got a good shot at that, and the women’s goal is top three and I really think they have a shot at finishing in the top two,” says Schultz.

The Loras track and field team has one last indoor meet down the street at the University of Dubuque this weekend.

SportsZONE will bring you all of the Duhawk’s results after their conference meet at Wartburg on February twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth.

Michael Higgins can be contacted at Michael.Higgins@loras.edu