Graphic Edge Invite

Graphic Edge Results

This weekend was highlighted by some great performances by several athletes. Corey Sugden jumped 6'4 in the high jump joining Blake Ridgeway as the second Viking over that height in the last two weeks. Along the same lines Freshman Holli Bloom jumped 11' in the pole vault which makes her the second Viking over that height in consecutive weeks. Paul Mallory made his way into finals by running 8.84 in the hurdles. In the finals he got a much better start and ran a new season best of 8.48. Adou Omot ran to an indoor best of 50.92 in the 400m dash. Expect him to continue to drop time in each race this season as he adjusts to running the indoor 400. Last year as a high school senior Adou ran a personal best of 49.2

On the distance side of things Caitlin Polgreen ran 3:02 in the 1000m dash. To place that time in perspective 3:03 was the winning time in the 1000m at last years conference championship in Bemidji. Freshman Molly Kokesh was impressive as she follow Caitlin through in 3:04. The 1000m dash was a good event for the Vikings as senior Brian Werner also posted a fast time running 2:31.39 which is slightly faster than his conference leading time from last week.

The throwers had a great weekend. For the first time this year all of the throwers competed in a meet. Kevin Knapp continued to improve in the weight throw as he threw 49-0.25. Knapp has a school and personal record toss from last year over 54'. He should continue to improve as he gets a chance to put in more repetitions. Tyler Lynch opened up the season in the weight throw with a toss of 44'. He too will continue to improve as he gets a chance to throw more throughout the year. On the women's side all three ladies threw the weight. Noel Bentele led the way with a toss of 51-2.25, Rachel Christiansen managed a toss of 47-2.25 and freshman Kristin Nielsen put in a mark at 39-08. The shot put was impressive for the women. Both Noel and Kristin managed to put throws out over the 40' mark. For the men Aaron Jung opened up the season with a 48-10 throw. Jung has a collegiate personal best of over 50 and should improve at each meet this year. He is coming of a slight shoulder injury which held him out of the last few meets. Tyler Lynch also threw and managed to come up with a toss of 46 feet. That's just slightly off the 47 foot throw that he managed last week and two feet short of his 48 foot collegiate personal best that he put in last year at the indoor conference meet. All three male throwers are also football players that balance their time between throwing and lifting with the football team. In the next four weeks that lead up to conference look for them to improve and move up the conference lists.

This next weekend the team will be competing with a limited squad at Mankato. Some kids will head home for a short break between J term and the beginning of second semester. With the conclusion of J term you will see the return of several athletes that have been gone for the past month. Claire Severson, Carissa Hotovy and Meagen G return from off campus activities and top finishers for the cross country team Tom Korbo and Matt Braithwait return from overseas to begin their indoor season. Both the men and women are looking to qualify teams for the national meet in the Distance Medley Relay. The men will be chasing an automatic time of 9:52 while the women will be chasing 11:48. The relay is made up of legs of 1200, 400, 800 and 1600 meters. Both men and women will be running at Iowa State on the weekend of February 12-13.

This weekend Jacob Pohlmann will be competing in his first Heptathlon. That means that he will do a couple of things. One he'll set a personal record and two because no one from Augustana has ever completed a heptathlon, he'll set a new school record in the event. Jake is a freshman from Harrisburg, SD. He's a great athlete and should be able to push the school record in the heptathlon beyond the national qualifying standard of 4550 points in the next year or so. Look for those results this coming weekend.

I'll be continuing my coverage throughout indoors including commentary on performances and highlighting athletes to watch as we head toward the conference meet. Later today I will be scoring the conference meet as it currently stands in an attempt to determine where teams stand as of this last weekend.

Go Vikings!