 "Photo: Michael Neumann")
The UW-Oshkosh men’s track and field team won the Oshkosh Invitational meet Saturday, held at UW-Oshkosh, with a total of 205 points.
With a big margin between first and second place, Central College took second with 98.50 points.
The weather was partly cloudy with the temperatures in the low to mid 60s, but the real story was how windy it was.
Many of the events, such as jumps in the long and triple jump and a few races, were not scored due to illegal wind measures.
For events to be legal, a wind gauge must read under “4.00” in order for the results to be marked and be put into the team’s total points.
“It was a blustery day,” said senior Ben Zill.
Despite the wind factor, many outstanding performances came about that ended in Oshkosh winning the meet with 205 points.
Sophomores Nate Stymiest and Brian Peterson, and senior Ben Wizner had a top-three performance in the 1,500-meter run. Stymiest won the event with a time of four minutes, 1.42 seconds, Wizner was second with a time of 4:04.53, and Peterson took third place with a time of 4:05.74.
This performance scored 24 total points for the team.
“It wasn’t what I’d like it to be, I spent too much energy on the first lap but I had fun doing it,” said Stymiest.
In addition, sophomore Jerrod Berget ran the 1,500-meter run with a time of 4:23.75.
Junior Chris Lipke won the 400-meter hurdles with a time of 56.83, scoring 10 points for the team.
Zill took first place in the 400-meter dash with a time of 49.23, scoring 10 points for the team.
“It feels good to win, but it was a slow time with the wind,” said Zill.
Fresmen Alex Dewitt and John Cejka took top-two in the 200-meter dash. Dewitt won the event with a time of 21.62, and Cejka took second place with a time of 21.68. Together, they scored 18 total points for the men’s team.
Also, sophomore Jonathon Jordan took second place in the men’s long jump event with a final jump of 22-7 1/4, scoring eight points for the team.
Head coach John Zupanc believes this meet was really efficient and many great performances came about throughout the meet.
“It went very well, the guys were very competitive and I was very happy with the meet,” said Zupanc.
“Brent Jude broke his own school record in the 100-meter dash with a time of 10.39 seconds and Pete Delzer and Tony Baker are third and fourth on the all-time list for shot put so there were excellent performances.”
There were many other great performances, and the Titans plan on using this momentum for the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Outdoor Championship meet this weekend.
“I’m excited, it’s a chance to redeem ourselves from the indoor conference at Platteville,” said Zill.
“It should be good. I’m running first in the 5,000-meter run and also in the 4x800-meter relay so it would be sweet to have two wins, because we won the 4x800 relay last year,” said Stymiest.
Along with the many athletes, Zupanc is excited to win the conference meet this weekend.
“Of course I’m excited; it will be very competitive between us, La-Crosse and UW-Eau Claire,” said Zupanc.
The UW-Oshkosh men’s track team will be competing in the Outdoor Conference meet held this Saturday at UW-River Falls with the time TBA.
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