The University of North Dakota track and field team spent the past two days competing at the South Dakota State University Indoor Classic in Brookings, South Dakota. The SDSU Indoor Classic is one of the biggest indoor meets in the nation with over one thousand entries across the board.

The throws saw success with senior Molli Detloff taking first by over a foot in weight throw and Katelyn Weber taking first in shot put also by over a foot. Sophomores Makala Keefe and Keely Walker also had very strong showings, finishing 11^th in weight throw and fourth in shot put, respectively.

The men’s throws had three finish in the top 20 of weight throw, juniors Tyler Kolander and Adam Mehr and sophomore Matt Culhane. Senior Ian Collins placed 12^th in the shot put.

For the jumps crew, the weekend was full of personal bests and good marks. Sophomore Alex Torp vaulted a personal best of 15’05 feet to place fourth in the men’s pole vault. Junior Nolan Hovland cleared 6’08 feet to place third in the high jump and junior Isabel Waite, also in high jump, cleared 5’02.5 to place sixth. Rounding out the weekend was Kyley Foster in pole vault capturing the title with a vault of 13’01.75.

Tianna McKinney led the women’s sprints in both the 200m and 400m dash. She cruised through to place eighth in the 200m and ninth in the 400m.

On the guys side of sprinting, freshman Ethan Buckles finished 8^th in the finals of the 60m dash after qualifying from the preliminaries and semi-finals. Freshman Cody Roder also placed eighth in the 400m dash with a time of 48.58 in a dense field of 21 different heats and 150 men total.

The UND distance runners were able to compete against stacked fields as well. Junior Emma Player ran over half a minute faster than her last 5k with a time of 18:13. Sophomore Erica Eades ran the 800m run in 2:14.26 to run her personal best indoors and in the process broke onto the UND top ten indoor list with the ninth fastest time in UND history.

This weekend was a good test of fitness for everyone going into the conference meet in two weeks. Most of the athletes competing in the conference meet in Flagstaff, Arizona will be taking next weekend off in preparation for the most important meet of the indoor season.

Madison Overby is a sports writer for the Dakota Student. She can be reached at [email protected].