Knoche, men's 4x800 relay earn All-American recognition
This past week, the Bees took on the NAIA Outdoor Track & Field Championships in Asheville, N.C., May 20-22. Each individual put forth his/her best effort to represent St. Ambrose at the national level.
In the men's 800m preliminaries, both Elijah House and Dylan Grandon competed. Grandon took ninth place with a time of 1:50.65, narrowly missing a top-eight finish.
In the women's 3000m steeplechase preliminaries, Kaitlyn Knoche and Lauren Johnson both competed with Knoche qualifying for finals with a time of 11:16. The next day, Knoche finished eighth to be crowned an All-American with a time of 11:04.04.
In the women's discus, Bree Neumiller threw a mark of 40.69m getting a place of 14th.
The near misses continued for SAU.
Brandt Williams threw the men's javelin a distance of 60.07m to get ninth place overall. In the men's triple jump, Leavell Windfield Jr. set a PR of 14.71m, also placing ninth overall.
The relays that made it to nationals included the men's 4x400m team of Kaizer Riley, Jackson Baedke, Javon Bruce, and Jatzyel Hernandez. They ran a time of 3:16.32 in the preliminaries. The men's 4x800m relay team of Elijah House, Tyler Moody, Dylan Grandon, and Chris Miserendino ran a school record of 7:28.34 in the prelims. This time is now the third fastest 4x800m relay time in NAIA history. This helped qualify them for the finals. There, Miserendino, Moody, Grandon, and Jack Lied ran for a time of 7:54 to place eighth in the country and receive All-American honors.
Great job to all the Bees that continued to put in the work for nationals as it paid off!