Pomerenke, multi-event athletes open day one of GPAC Championships
CRETE, Neb. – The GPAC Indoor Track and Field Championships opened on Friday with the multi events taking place at Doane College. On the women’s side, Concordia’s Lydia Pomerenke, Montana Hayes and Kierstyn Besel all set new personal bests for total points in the pentathlon.
Pomerenke, a junior from Seward, placed sixth in the long jump (16’ 5 ¾”) and seventh in both the 800 meter run (2:37.35) and the shot put (30’ 9 ¼”) on the way to scoring a new personal record of 2,939 points. That placed her seventh overall in the conference and first among the three Bulldog participants.
Hayes (10th) and Besel (12th) came in with 2,803 and 2,608 points, respectively. Hayes posted her highest placement in the shot put as she notched a mark of 30’ 11 ¾” to finish sixth in that event. Meanwhile, Besel finished fourth in the 800 meter run by clocking in at 2:36.45.
On the men’s side, freshman Brandon Ramos represented Concordia by concluding day one in seventh place with four of the seven events in the heptathlon completed. The other three will take place on Saturday morning at 9 a.m. Ramos tallied 2,496 points aided by a long jump of 20’ 10” that allowed him to claim sixth place in the event.
The meat of the GPAC Championships will play out on Saturday. The men’s heptathlon will finish up before giving way to a flurry of field and running events in the afternoon at the University of Nebraska’s Devaney Center. The complete schedule can be viewed HERE. Live results for Saturday will be available HERE.
Here are some thoughts from head coach Kregg Einspahr that he provided prior to the start of the conference championships:
- On the men’s meet: “The GPAC men scores out to be an extremely close race between Doane, Morningside and Concordia. We’ve had some injuries recently and some sickness. It’s really taken it out of some of our guys. So we’ll have to get healthy and hopefully really come out and have a very good meet and battle for the conference championship.”
- On the women’s meet: “On the women’s side, the clear favorite is Doane. We’re trying to get ourselves in the top tier of the conference. That’s not going to be easy to do this year. We’re a little bit of a young team. We have some people competing well. We’re particularly strong in the pole vault and the shot put. We’ll see how it all shakes out at the conference meet.”
