Despite many strong performances on both the men’s and women’s sides, the track and field team fell to rival Wisconsin-Milwaukee in a dual meet on Saturday at the Klotsche Center.
The Marquette women fell by just two points, 71-69, coming within .04 seconds in the 1600-meter relay of taking the meet. The men fell 79.5-58.5.
“I was pleased with our efforts. We had a lot of (personal records) set,” coach Bert Rogers said. “We had a couple of freshman break records. We didn’t do as well as we had hoped in the team score aspect, but overall it was a good meet.
“UWM is a very good team. They win their conference basically every year. They have a lot of really talented seniors and they had a good meet.”
Overall, it was a very good performance for the Golden Eagles despite the loss. The meet saw 44 Marquette athletes set personal best times, 28 of which were women.
The women were once again led by junior pole-vaulter Lauren Darnall, who captured her third event title in a row and her fourth of the year.
“She has been doing pretty well,” Rogers said. “She has been winning against very good competition these past few weeks. She will face her best competition of the year thus far this weekend in Iowa. She will be attempting to jump 13 feet, and if she gets it she has a pretty good chance of winning.”
Darnall, who won the event on her first jump, spent the rest of her jumps attempting 13 feet and came pretty close, according to Rogers.
Other good performances included freshman Carlye Schuh, who finished third in the long jump with a distance of 18 feet, 7.75 inches, good for fourth all-time in Marquette history.
The big performance of the day came from freshman Sarah Ball, whose second place finish with a time of 1 minute, 36.47 seconds in the 600-meter race was good enough to set a freshman record.
“Sarah ran a great race and broke our freshman record in the 600, then she came back and ran well in the 4×400 meter relay,” assistant coach Mike Nelson said. “She did a good job.”
The men also gave some strong performances. Junior Jack Hackett took home the event title in the mile with a time of 4 minutes, 11.05 seconds.
Hackett was not the only one to take home an event title.
Senior Nick Szczech won the 3,000 meter race with a time of 8 minutes, 37.72 seconds 8:37.72, and senior Joseph Kohut won the shot put with a distance of 49 feet, 3.75 inches.
There was also intense competition in the high jump as freshman Michael Saindon was able to take home the event title in a three-way jump-off that included fellow Marquette jumper sophomore Cheldon Brown. Both cleared 6 feet, 4.75 inches before the jump-off.
However the big story of the day for the men was junior David Carbajal, who finished second in the weight throw. What was special about his accomplishment was that he set a personal best of 52 feet, 4 inches, beating his old record of 45 feet, 4 inches by seven feet.
“David finally put things together in a meet,” associate head coach Michael Koenning said. “He really has been working hard on the hammer throw and the weight toss. He did not do as well last week at Wisconsin, but really put out a good throw this week at UWM.”
Marquette will return to competition next weekend at the Bill Bergan Invitational at Iowa State in Ames, Iowa. Rogers is excited for the meet and expects to see more good performances from his athletes.
“I think this will be the deepest meet we’ve had so far,” Rogers said. “Iowa State has what we call an oversized track. It should lead to (personal records) because the turns won’t be as steep.”
