SEWARD, Neb. – Senior Kim Wood did more Kim Wood things and Cody Boellstorff took it up another notch as the nationally-ranked (women fourth, men fifth) Concordia University track and field programs fine-tuned before the upcoming conference championships. Friday’s Concordia Indoor Invitational marked the final indoor home meet of 2016 for the Bulldogs, who played host to athletes representing 11 different institutions.
The Concordia Invite provided another forum for 24th-year head coach Kregg Einspahr’s squads to display their star power.
“I’m pretty happy with the whole day. We have some different athletes in different events starting to really come around,” Einspahr said. “We looked pretty good. We have a lot of very, very good individuals. We’re not the favorites (for the GPAC title), but I’ve seen a lot of things happen at the conference championships. We score out very well. If we perform the way we did today I think we can make a run for GPAC championships.”
Wood, who won three GPAC indoor titles in 2015, seems determined to break every possible female indoor program record on the track. The native of Greeley, Neb., continued her incredible run of success by speeding to a new school standard of 1:33.15 in the 600 meter race, winning the event by more than seven seconds. Based on the current NAIA leaderboard, Wood now ranks No. 2 nationally in the 600. She even messed around in the 200 meter dash and turned in a time of 27.34, ranking 15th best on the school’s all-time list.
Wood was already stellar during her first three seasons on the track. Now she’s become one of the best ever at Concordia.
Said Einspahr, “I think she’s ready to have a great final GPAC indoor championship. She’s excited. She’s going to challenge herself. She’s got a lot of confidence right now. Clearly she’s training and competing at an extremely high level.”
Just cleared on Tuesday to return to practice, defending NAIA weight throw national champion Josh Slechta ripped off an automatic national qualifying toss of 58’ ¼” to ensure a return trip to the grand stage. With precious little prep time after tearing a pectoral muscle during football season, the senior from Kennard, Neb., is working to quickly get back up to speed.
“I was pretty surprised,” Slechta said. “I didn’t know how hard I was going to go today. My goal was just to qualify for conference and maybe pop an ‘A’ mark at conference, but it worked out today.”
Boellstorff grew his NAIA-leading and school record weight throw by nearly five inches (68 9 ¼”) on his way to yet another victory and a Fieldhouse record. Boellstorff and Slechta were two of four Bulldogs to exceed the automatic national mark in the weight. The others were Philip Kreutzer (58’ 3 ¾”) and Benjamin Schulteis (55’ 7 ¾”). They took up four of the top six spots at the Concordia Invite. Boellstorff also came through with an automatic mark in the shot put (51’ 7”), an event Zach Lurz won with a toss of 58’ 2.” Trey Barnes placed third in the shot with his mark of 54.’
On the women’s side, junior Kali Robb is drawing near the school record in the weight throw. She PR’d with a distance of 60’ 11 ¼” on Friday. Teammates Stephanie Coley (57’ 11 ¾”) and Kattie Cleveland (57’ 6 ½”) placed third and fourth, respectively, in the event. In the shot put, Coley (47’ 4 ¼”), Samantha Liermann (46’ 7 ½”) and Robb (46’ 2 ¾”) went two-three-four.
In the pole vault pit, freshman McKenzie Gravo continues to excel. The native of Henderson, Nev., won the competition by clearing an automatic mark of 11’ 10 ¾” for the second-straight week. Gravo has been a quick study under pole vault coach Jason Berry.
“I only started pole vaulting two years ago,” Gravo said. “I was a gymnast my entire life and then I broke my back. I needed to go into something else. I was like, ‘pole vaulting, why not?’ I had a lot of doubt in whether I could compete on the collegiate level, but everyone around me has really supported me.”
Wood also played a role in another breakthrough on the track. She led off for the women’s 4x400 meter relay that turned in a fresh automatic national qualifying time of 3:59.99. The relay team included Marti Vlasin, Chrstine Beune and Alayna Daberkow. In the 800 meter run, Daberkow registered a second place time of 2:22.19.
Elsewhere on the track, junior CJ Muller won the 200 meter dash in a time of 22.61, beating out a field of 38 runners. Additional wins came in the men’s one mile with Patrick Wortmann finishing in 4:32.79, in the men’s 60 meter hurdles as Lucas Wiechman clocked in at 8.43 and in the men’s 4x400 meter relay (3:22.74). Emily Sievert finished runner up in the 3,000 meter race (10:30.35). Meanwhile, freshman Nathan Matters placed second in the 400 meter dash (51.52).
Other notable efforts in the field events were produced by Anna Beune (third in long jump) and Katelyn Shoup (third in triple jump).
The Bulldogs now prep for the most significant portion of their indoor season with the GPAC championships coming up next week (Feb. 19-20) inside the Bob Devaney Sports Center in Lincoln. Concordia is coming off of runner-up men’s and women’s finishes at last year’s indoor conference championship meet. The event schedule for the 2016 championships can be viewed HERE.