Titans Place Sixth At WIAC Indoor Championship
UW-Oshkosh's Erik Schwandt won the 60-meter dash by two-thousandths of a second at the 50th Annual Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) Men's Indoor Track & Field Championship (presented by Culver's) held Friday and Saturday (Feb. 23-24) in Stevens Point.
Schwandt, UW-Oshkosh's lone event champion, defeated 19 other runners with his time of 6.861 seconds. UW-La Crosse's Ernest Winters finished second in the 60-meter dash with a time of 6.863 seconds, less than a half-inch at most behind Schwandt.
The Titans also had Justin Skinkis place second in the 800-meter run with a time of 1:56.05. Skinkis, the event's defending champion, was beaten by winning time of 1:55.20 recorded by UW-Whitewater's Brian Kuehl.
UW-Oshkosh owned a pair of third-place performances as Devan Gertschen leaped to a height of 15-7 1/4 in the pole vault while Ryan Powers ran to a time of 22.14 seconds in the 200-meter dash.
The Titans' Jordan Boyd contributed a fourth-place finish in the high jump with a measurement of 6-6 3/4.
UW-Oshkosh's Christian Lopez had a pair of fifth-place efforts, running to times of 7.05 seconds in the 60-meter dash and 22.30 seconds in the 200-meter dash.
Other fifth-place finishes belonged to the Titans' Carson Weber and Joe Zack. Weber marked a height of 6-4 3/4 in the high jump while Zack ran to a time of 4:19.45 in the mile run.
Joshua Jones of the Titans ranked fifth in the triple jump with a skip of 45-0 1/2 while Michael Juarez and Bryce Mancheski both finished seventh with performances of 8:42.32 in the 3,000-meter run and 22-9 1/4 in the long jump, respectively.
Placing eighth for UW-Oshkosh were Garrison Griest in the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 8.69 seconds and Lucas Weber in the 5,000-meter run with an effort of 15:18.45.
In the relays, UW-Oshkosh finished second in the 1,600-meter event as Lopez, Powers, Skinkis and Nick Freitag ran to a time of 3:21.47. The Titans' distance medley squad of Juarez, Skinkis, Noah O'Neill and Nolan Peterson placed fifth with a time of 10:29.33.
UW-La Crosse had just three event winners, but used balanced scoring to capture the team title with 157.5 points. It was the Eagles' 17th straight WIAC indoor championship and 43rd overall.
UW-Whitewater finished second in the team standings with 105 points while UW-Stevens Point placed third with 90, UW-Eau Claire fourth with 88, UW-Platteville fifth with 76, UW-Oshkosh sixth with 73.5, UW-Stout seventh with 66.5 and UW-River Falls eighth with 6.5.
Walker Rynes of UW-Platteville was named Track Performer of the Meet while Sam Elsner of UW-Stout was chosen as the Field Performer of the Meet. UW-La Crosse's Josh Buchholtz was selected as the conference's Indoor Coach of the Year.
UW-Oshkosh will compete in last chance national qualifiers at Carthage College on Friday (March 2) and UW-Stevens Point on Saturday (March 3) before participating at the NCAA Division III Indoor Championship on March 9-10 in Birmingham, Ala.