Titans Begin Outdoor Season With Second-Place Finish

Devan Gertschen won the pole vault competition while Bailey Quinn scored in three events as UW-Oshkosh opened its men's outdoor track & field season with a second-place finish at the Benedictine University Invitational held Saturday (April 7) in Lisle, Ill.

UW-Oshkosh battled through the frigid temperatures to score 85 points. NCAA Division I Loyola University (Ill.) won the 18-team meet with 140.5 points while Coe College (Iowa) finished third with 65 points, NCAA Division I University of Illinois-Chicago fourth with 61 and College of DuPage (Ill.) fifth with 60.

UW-Oshkosh tallied 29 of its team points in the pole vault, including 10 on Gertschen's winning height of 15-5. The Titans also had Joe Vils finish second, Zachary Emmer third and Mitchell Hasey fourth in the event with leaps of 14-5 1/4. Gertschen added a third-place finish of 21-2 1/2 in the long jump.

The Titans counted 17 points in the 100-meter dash as Ryan Powers finished second with a time of 11.28 seconds, Christian Lopez fourth in 11.33 and Robert Ogbuli fifth in 11.37. Ogbuli also contributed a fifth-place time of 23.12 seconds in the 200-meter dash.

Quinn earned 10 points for the Titans by recording a second-place distance of 169-0 in the hammer throw and eighth-place marks of 43-2 1/2 in the shot put and 127-8 in the discus.

UW-Oshkosh's Jared Benson finished fourth in a pair of events, the triple jump with a skip of 39-1 and the javelin with a throw of 142-5.

The Titans also received a fifth-place leap of 20-5 from Bryce Mancheski and eighth-place times of 18.71 seconds from Carson Weber in the 110-meter hurdles and 52.62 seconds from Todd Beadle in the 400-meter run.

UW-Oshkosh will compete at the UW-Platteville Invitational on Thursday (April 12).