South Dakota Track and Field Challenge nets Concordia more than a dozen medals
Junior Katelyn Nix (middle) and sophomore Kyra Becker (right) competing in a women’s race.
Photo credit: Josiah Seabaugh (photo from previous meet)
By Isaac Dawson
The Concordia Track and Field team competed at the South Dakota Track and Field Challenge this Saturday, taking a total of three gold, six silver, and five bronze medals for the day, with one new qualifier for the Nationals meet held at the end of the month.
In the field events portion of the challenge, seniors Chris Wren and Darien Semedo crushed the competition to earn first and second place in the hammer throw at 58.82 meters and 56.43 meters respectively.
Both men and women did well in the shot put. Semedo got third place with 16.40 meters for the men, and junior Abigail Gerber (14.38 meters) and senior Kamryn Pokorney (13.34 meters) got second and third for the women.
Freshman Jonah Paulsen got third in the triple jump with a leap of 13.24 meters. Sophomore Matthew Boyer finished off the field events, taking second place in the discus throw at 47.03 meters.
For the running events, junior Kylahn Freiberg took home the gold in the women’s 5000-meter run, getting a time of 17:58.43. Senior Calvin Rohde (15:25.66) and freshman Trey Robertson (15:46.53) took first and second place for the men, beating out the third-place runner by more than 30 seconds.
The women’s 4×100 meter relay of freshman Cambria Saunders, sophomore Kayla Kirchner, senior Kellie Rhodes, and sophomore Adrianna Rodencal took second place with a total time of 48.40.
Rodencal earned the women their second track event medal with a 13.96 second place in the 100-meter hurdles, sophomore Kayla Svoboda following up in third with 15.02.
Junior Nathan Pennekamp got third in the men’s steeplechase at just under ten minutes, losing out on second by a mere 1.5 seconds with a time of 9:59.07 and barely beating out a runner from Buena Vista.
The team’s next meet is the three-day Jim Dutcher Invite in Crete starting on April 18 at 2 p.m.
