Storm women take second at IIAC Championship
STORM LAKE, Iowa – The Simpson women's track and field team put forth all-conference performances in 10 events and won four on the way to a second-place finish at the Iowa Conference Outdoor Track and Field Championships at J. Leslie Rollins Stadium on Saturday.
The second-place finish is the highest under fifth-year head coach Dave Cleveland and the highest by a Simpson team in more than a decade.
"It is gratifying to finish as well as we could finish and score as many points as we could," Cleveland said. "To send out this group of seniors with a performance like this is special. The energy was great and to have so many people contribute was special."
The Storm provisionally qualified for the NCAA Championships in 10 events and automatically qualified in one.
Reigning NCAA Champion Wartburg won the meet with 241 points, followed by Simpson (125) and Central (109). Luther placed fourth (103.50), followed by Loras (93), Coe (66), Dubuque (44.50), Cornell (20) and Buena Vista (17).
The automatic qualifier came from Lauren Bucklin (Bondurant, Iowa/Bondurant-Farrar), who ran a season-best time of 14.24 to win the 100-meter hurdles. Bucklin also placed first, set an Iowa Conference Championship record and provisionally qualified in the 400 hurdles (62.12), ran on the 3rd-place 4x400-meter relay team that also reached a provisional qualifying mark (3:55.69), and took seventh in the 100-meter dash.
Catie Ellingson (Indianola, Iowa/Indianola) won the 1500 meters in a provisional-qualifying time of 4:36.35. Ellingson provisionally qualified in the 800 meters as well, taking fourth (2:13.76) in a field in which the top five runners all qualified for the national meet. Sarah Hammel (Dorchester, Iowa/Waukon) provisionally qualified with a time of 2:13.68 in the preliminaries.
Kinsey Bak (Hinton, Iowa/Hinton) turned in Simpson's other first-place effort, clearing 5-5 ¼ in the high jump. The sophomore also placed third in the triple jump (35-4 ½), fourth in the long jump (17-3 ¼) and ninth in the 100-meter hurdles (15.65). Last week, she finished fifth in the heptathlon with 4,060 points.
Jess Christensen (Harlan, Iowa/Harlan) earned all-conference honors with a second-place finish in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, improving on her own school record by five seconds and provisionally qualifying for nationals (11:10.23).
Simpson also got provisional qualifying efforts from Ali Hagerty (Tama, Iowa/South Tama) in the javelin (2nd, 131-1), Chelsey Degen (Algona, Iowa/Algona) in the discus (2nd, 145-8), Lauren Anderson (Oakland, Iowa/Riverside) in the prelims of the 100 hurdles (14.94) and the 4x400 relay team of Anderson, Bucklin, Hammel and Ellingson (3:55.69).
Simpson athletes will have two final opportunities to qualify for the national meet. On Wednesday, May 19 the Storm travel to the Central Last Chance Meet in Pella, Iowa and go to the North Central Last Chance Meet in Naperville, Ill. May 21-22. The NCAA Division III Championships take place May 27-29 at Baldwin-Wallace College in Cleveland, Ohio.
