Marquette wrapped up its regular indoor track season with Sunday’s meet at the Klotsche Center, right in their home city of Milwaukee at the Panther Tune-Up for the second time this season. The Golden Eagles used their final meet in preparation for the Big East Championships next week in Chicago.
“We’re using this weekend just to be down and recover,” Marquette head coach Bert Rogers said. “Any of those aches and pains, taken care of.”
Even with some of the athletes resting, it was still a record setting day for one Marquette athlete. Junior thrower Megan White, moved into the all-time top 10 list for the indoor weight throw with a throw of 17.81m.
Despite White’s career day, Wisconsin took control of the women’s weight throw with both of their athletes Nora Skoraczewski and Morgan Flaska finishing first and second respectively. Both Badgers recorded PR’s and top 100 distances in division 1.
Marquette did take home one of the field events, courtesy of a first-place finish in the men’s pole vault from first-year jumper Mason Cornwell with a jump of 4.45m.
“The pole vault being such a technical event,” Rogers said, “he’s really making some nice progress.”
Another athlete that made progress was Junior Distance Runner Will Allen. Allen was trailing University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee distance runner Sam Schreiber for the first four laps of the eight lap, one-mile run event.
But at the beginning of the fifth lap, the gap started to close, and once the bell rang for the race’s final lap, Allen and Schreiber were going step for step. Shortly after the first turn, the Marquette fans roared as Allen took the lead, one he would not give back. Allen finished the race with a victory and personal record, with a time of 4:13.
“It was great,” Rogers said. “It was good to see where he was at especially headed into next week with Big East (Championships).”
The success on the track echoed to the women’s side as well with Marquette first-year sprinter Kieran Petrie taking home the Golden Eagles’ lone victory in the women’s side of the running events, winning the 400m with a season best time of 59.69.
The Golden Eagles dominated the men’s 800m, finishing with the top two finishers and, if not for a late trip from first-year distance runner Jack Chadwick, he would have joined teammates Charlie Richardson (1st) and Edgar Valles (2nd) as a top three finisher. They were performances Rogers was looking for from his runners in preparation for the Big East Championships.
“Anybody else that needed to compete,” Rogers said, “competed today to kind of get ready.”
Back on the field, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee reigned supreme just as they did the last time Marquette competed against them in the Klotsche Center. The Panthers were victorious in over half of the field events, winning seven of 12.
The Panther athlete that stole the show was junior Anna Szepieniec. Szepieniec won three events on Sunday, one in the field and two on the track. She dominated the women’s 60m hurdles with a time of 8.53 over a half second faster than second place finisher senior Lilly Hamacher of the University of Wisconsin club, helping the Panthers take home six track events. Szepieniec also was victorious in both the women’s long jump and triple jump.
The Golden Eagles saw two of their athletes place in both the shot-put and men’s weight throw. In the shot-put, first-year Alex Matzke (2nd – 14.89m) and sophomore Charlie Smith (3rd – 14.75m). The weight throw saw junior Sebastian Kubas (2nd – 15.78m) and first-year Sam Crane (3rd – 15.61m).
The Golden Eagles are in action next week at the Big East Championships in Chicago, IL.
This article was written by Lukas Schulze. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @LukasschulzeMU.
