UW-River Falls track and field teams have strong showing at Falcon Winter Classic

The UW-River Falls men's and women’s track and field teams put on a good show during the 2015 Falcon Winter Classic on Saturday, Jan. 31.

Both teams finished in the top three in Saturday's meet at the Knowles Center, with the men’s team finishing second and the women’s team finishing third. There were many strong performances by both teams with a total of six first place finishes, three by the men and three by the women.

Before the meet, Head Coach Matthew Cole said he wanted to see who the competitors were on the team and who was going to step up to the competition.

The first place winners for the men’s team were juniors Daniel Borash and Shane White, and senior Windsor Molnar. Borash won the one-mile run event with a time of 4:22.17. Molnar won the pole vault event with a height of 14-5 ½, even though it was far from his best vault in his Falcon career.

“I haven't really felt like I could hit a new [personal record] until this meet, so, if anything really improved my confidence, it was the way my vault felt, not anything to do with the meet,” Molnar said.

White finished first in the 55-meter hurdles and was 0.35 seconds away from a program record in the event.

“Records are meant to be broken," White said. "There's always something for me to work on in such a technical race, but I feel with hard work and dedication I can go out and break the record. For now, I'll just keep practicing and take every challenge one hurdle at a time.”

For the women’s team, two of the three wins came from the relay teams. The 4x200-meter team finished with a time of 1:48.07, placing first. The other women’s relay team to win was the 4x400-meter team with a time of 4:12.17. Sophomore Sherahlynn Linkert placed first in the 55-meter hurdles. She also came close to breaking a program record with a time of 8.62, 0.30 seconds away from the record. For a young women’s team, getting third place is a good sign of the potential the group has.

“This track and field team is a blast to be a part of and I can’t wait to see what this season, and future seasons, will have in store,” Linkert said.

The men's and women's teams were able to get contributions from a variety of events. The men’s team finished with a total of 130 points which was 72 points behind the first place University of St. Thomas. The women’s team had a total of 98 points which was 75 points behind first place Macalester College. Both winning schools are located in St. Paul, Minnesota.

It was also a recruit visit day for UWRF as many recruits watched some of the strong performances by the track and field team. Both teams will travel and compete in the Wartburg College Select at 8 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 7, in Waverly, Iowa.