The St. Kate's track and field team had plenty to cheer about on day one of the MIAC outdoor track and field championships. In the first event on the track, the Wildcats 4 x 100 relay team of Jennifer Ampe, Samantha Levercom, Sydney Malanaphy and Katie Lawler got things off to a fantastic start and the team never looked back from there.
The 4 x 100 relay team came in ranked 11th, but dropped 1.5 seconds off their seed time to finish seventh and advance to Saturday's final.
A short while later Kim Engel ran a new personal best of 59.48 and advanced to Saturday's final of the 400 meter dash.
Levercom then returned to the track to compete in the 100 meter dash. Much like the 4 x 100 team, she moved up several notches from her pre-meet seed and made the final round on Saturday. Her time of 12.89 was also the second fastest 100 meter dash time in St. Kate's history.
Kayla Engel also easily advanced to Saturday's final as she cruised to a victory in her heat of the 800 meter run.
While most of day one of the meet is preliminary rounds of events, in the few event finals that were contested the Wildcats were equally as impressive.
Samantha Larson, who entered the shot put competition as the ninth seed, set a new personal best in the event with a toss of 12.18 meters (39-11.5) to finish fifth and pick up MIAC All-Conference Honorable Mention honors.
As the shot put was progressing the rain picked up at the meet, but that did not dampen the Wildcats spirits. In fact, the final two events were a coontinuation of the Wildcats early meet success.
In the penultimate event on the night, Greta Sieve continued to etch her name in St. Kate's track and field history books. Sieve destroyed Katie Jorgenson's 10,000 meter record (38:26.15). Sieve, who had never competed in the event prior to Friday's competition, ran an NCAA provisional qualifying time of 37:04.42 to finish third overall. That is now the fourth record that Sieve has set this outdoor season for the Wildcats. She now has every distance record in school history from the 1500 meter run on up. By virtue of her top three finish Sieve also picked up the first MIAC All-Conference award of her career.
Immediately after the 10k, the Wildcats 4 x 800 meter relay team of Heidi Sande, Amanda Manship, Marci Burg and Kristie Bronson sped their way around the rain slicked track to pick up MIAC Honorable Mention honors. The quartet finished sixth overall with a time of 9:57.21. That is the fourth fastest time in school history. For anchor leg Kristie Bronson, one of only two seniors on the St. Kate's team, the event marked the first time she had picked up MIAC conference honors in her career.
Complete Day One Results
