OSHKOSH, Wis. – In their final competition for the calendar year, the Red Hawks took advantage of the opportunity and turned numerous lifetime best and nationally ranked performances at the UWO Early Bird Invite. As a group, 86% of the Ripon athletes competing hit a lifetime best on Saturday totaling 32 marks altogether, with nine performances landing on the Top-10 All-Time list in school history.
Leading the charge was the men's 4x400 relay that turned in the second fastest time in school history. Andrew Fuhrmann,
Dameco Walker,
Ben Fisher and
Jacob Jumbeck teamed up to run a 3:26.30, which also stands as the seventh fastest relay in NCAA DIII at the moment. Fuhrmann individually recorded a second-ranked performance in school history as he ran to a new personal best time in the 200m of 22.57, just 0.02 seconds shy of the school record. That time also ranks top-20 nationally for NCAA DIII.
Kara Block on the women's side turned in three lifetime best performances on Saturday, with two of those landing on the Top-10 All-Time lists. She leapt out to 5.07m/16'7.75 in the Long Jump and up and over 1.51m/4'11.75 in the High Jump, ranking fifth and tenth all-time, respectively.
Senior
Payton Rahn ran her first 400m of the indoor season and did so in a big way, running a new lifetime best time of 62.70 seconds to move her up to eighth all-time in school history and top-40 currently in the NCAA.
A trio of throwers are re-writing the record books as
Arynn Mathieu,
Kalyn Otzelberger and
Anastasia Smith put three performances on the Weight Throw Top-10 All-Time list, all of them throwing personal bests. Mathieu got the 20-lb weight out to 13.38m/43'10.75, with Otzelberger and Smith recording distances of 13.11m/43'0.25 and 13/04m/42'9.5, ranking sixth, ninth and tenth, respectively. Their teammate
Cheyanne Saylor also holds the 12th best mark in school history in that event.
Sophomore multi-event athlete
Oscar Telschow also made a mark before the end of the year as he duplicated his lifetime best in the 60m Hurdles, running a time of 9.22 seconds in both prelims and finals, ranking as the ninth fastest time in school history.
Junior jumper
Dameco Walker was just shy of his school record leap in the Long Jump, as he turned in a very solid mark of 6.94m/22'9.25 which ranks him 11th in nation currently.
The Red Hawks will now have four weekends off of meets around finals and the holidays before returning to competition on Saturday January 15 for the annual Alumni Dual Meet. That meet will take place at Noon and all Red Hawk Track & Field and Cross Country alumnae are welcome to attend.
