Jackrabbits finish weekend with 18 PRs

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The South Dakota State track and field team wrapped up the busy week of competition with 18 personal-best marks from the Red Raider Open, hosted by Northwestern College on Friday and Saturday.

RED RAIDER OPEN

ORANGE CITY, Iowa – The Jackrabbits had four event champions, with sophomores Chloe Bermel and Jake Lieberg adding their first career wins in their respective events, and senior Logan Ammons recording his third crown of his career in the hammer throw (191-11.00).

Bermel ran a 0.25-second personal-best to lead eight other Jackrabbits in the 200-meter (25.64w) while Lieberg added a season-best mark in the 400 hurdles (55.85), beating teammate and freshman Josh Donahoe (10th, 59.22) who ran his first career 400 hurdles.

Bermel also came away with a 0.87-second personal-best in the open 400 (fifth, 59.37).

Donahoe, in his first weekend of outdoor competition as a Jackrabbit, also qualified for the finals of the 110 hurdles to earn a fifth-place finish with an illegally wind-aided mark (15.77W, 4.4 wind). His mark in the prelims (16.08w) will stand as his best.

Freshman Mikayla Wevik competed in the 200 with Bermel to finish 15th overall (26.84) but tallied her best event in the 100, coming away with her first top-three finish in the event to lead the Jackrabbits (third, 15.51w). In the prelims, the Tea, S.D. native trimmed 0.21 seconds off her previous-best mark to jump to the team’s second-fastest 100-meter runner on the season performance list.

Another freshman, Lauren Van Dyke, added a runner-up finish in the 400 (58.85) to earn herself her first career silver-crown finish outdoors and a 1.22-second personal-best. She also claimed a sixth-place finish behind Bermel in the 200 for her first career mark in the event – indoors or outdoors (26.41w).

The freshmen trio of Meghan Hettinga, Faith Leiseth and Caitlin Thilges tallied seven personal-best marks in the Jacks’ favor, with Thilges coming away with three – shot put by 10.25 inches; discus throw by 2 feet, 4 inches; and hammer throw by 2 feet, 4 inches).

Also throwing personal-best marks were sophomores Miranda Zinola (in the discus by 20 feet, 8 inches and in the javelin throw by four feet); Naomi Wynn (in the hammer by 4 feet, 5 inches); and Alex Dynes (in the shot put by 1 foot, 2 3/4 inches).

For the men, redshirt freshman Samuel Coil added a personal-best mark in both the shot put (2 feet, 2.25 inches) and discus throw (2 feet, 6 inches) en route to his second top-three finish in the shot put as an attached Jack (fifth including unattached finishes).

The first win of the day was the women’s 4x100-meter relay (So. Madison Gray, Bermel, Jr. Jennifer Thill, and Wevik). It was a new combination of Jackrabbits and the second relay mark of the season for the women, 0.27 seconds away from the best.