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MARYVILLE, MO – The Nebraska-Kearney track and field team won three individual events at the 2024 MIAA Outdoor Championships this weekend in Maryville, Mo.
Northwest Missouri hosted the meet which began Friday afternoon and ran until Sunday night.
Fremont senior Wes Ferguson (800-meters), Kearney senior Brayden Sorensen (high jump) and York sophomore Brynn Hirschfeld (steeplechase) each placed first with Kansas sophomore Rylan Basart (javelin) runner up. This is Ferguson’s third straight outdoor 800 title while Sorensen also won the high jump in 2022.
In the team race, Pittsburg State defended its titles, the No. 3 men scoring 186.50 points and the No. 2 women tallying 212.50 points. Both runners up were well behind the Gorillas. The No. 16 Loper men tallied 68 points to finish sixth with the UNK women (52.50) coming in eighth place.
Ferguson, the Division II leader in the 800 (1:45.85), ran a 1:47.60 to win by nearly three seconds. On Saturday, his prelim time of 1:48.33 was almost three seconds faster than the next best time. In the men’s high jump, Sorensen went a season-best 7-1.50, just shy of his own school-mark (7-1.75) achieved last May. Washburn’s Jordan Dale also went 7-1.50 but Sorensen won thanks to clearing the bar on his first attempt. Finally, Hirschfeld had a career-best 10:51.61 on Saturday to win the steeplechase by almost two seconds. The effort keeps her second on UNK’s all-time list and moves her up to 33rd nationally.
Basart was one of four Lopers to score in the javelin. He had a heave of 227-7 with Kansas sophomore Kenyon Forest fourth (career-best 213-2), Kansas senior Evan Prohaska seventh (199-3) and Kansas freshman Wyatt Hammond eighth (197-1). Forest moves up to second all-time in Loper lore, passing the old school-record of 212-0, and joins his teammates in the nation’s Top 20.
Next, Dannebrog freshman Sydney Davis was third in the high jump (season-best 5-8.50), O’Neill senior Abby Everitt was a spot behind (season-best 5-7.25) with Stamford sophomore Brianna Russell sixth (5-5.25). Other women to crack the top five were Kearney junior Grace Bonsall in the 10,000 (5th/36:23.40), Albion junior Jordan Soto-Stopak in the 5,000 (5th/17:46.66) and Kearney sophomore Lily Novacek in the hammer (4th/184-3).
The Loper men to finish in the top five in their respective events were Creighton junior Alex Homan in the pole vault (3rd/career-best 16-8), David City junior Payton Davis in the 1,500 (4th/3:49.05), Ravenna senior Jack Drahota in the 400 hurdles (5th/52.90), Kearney junior Colby Spangler in the triple jump (5th/48-4) and Omaha sophomore Nick Abdalla in the steeplechase (5th/9:20.93). Finally, Giltner senior Alex Goracke scored in both the shot put (6th/55-11) and hammer (6th/194-3) with Kansas freshman Charis Robinson seventh in the 800 (2:16.80) and sixth in the 1,500 (1:37.95).
UNK hosts the Loper Twilight next Saturday and after attending the Concordia Twilight on Friday.
