Senior Kinsey Bak and junior Jade Osborne brought home a combined three wins for the women’s track and field team at the Spartan Open in Dubuque on Jan. 28. For the men’s team, senior Ryan Edwardson and sophomore Josh Diehm led the charge turning in two second-place finishes.

University of Wisconsin-Platteville won the meet with a score of 153 points followed by Clark, Dubuque and Simpson. Bak, a four time All-American, won the high jump event by clearing 5-foot-3 and then won the long jump competition with a 17-1/2 foot jump. Bak also finished third in the 55-meter hurdles with a time of 9.08.

Osborne won the 3,000 meter run, pacing the field with a time of 11:23.83. Rounding out the top performances of the day for the Storm was freshman Bayley Fleshner with a second place time of 8.89 in the 55-meter hurdles.

With a solid performance in Dubuque, the team continues to look forward to improving this season.

“As a team I feel like we all made great improvements and strides forward, but this meet also shows us places where we can improve our abilities and make the most of our talent,” freshman Mariah Young said.

Junior Sammy Nelson recorded a top-10 finish for the Storm in the 800-meter run with a time of 2:23.00, which was good enough for 4th place. Junior April Sigmund also finished 6th in the event with a time of 2:29.62.

In the 200-meter dash the Storm had two more top-10 finishes. Freshman Sarah Ney finished sixth with a time of 28.04. Junior Jordan Maher finished 10th in the event with a time of 29.01.

The team collectively agrees there is room for improvement, but for the second meet of the year, they are happy with the results.

“I think we just need more practice time to work on individual things and get more speed work in, but over all I think we are looking pretty good for our second meet,” sophomore Shelby King said.

The men’s team may not have had any individual champions, but they were not lacking on solid performances. Edwardson finished second in the 3,000 meter run with a time of 8:57.58. Showing dominance in the 3,000 meter run, the Storm took three of the top five places in the event with junior Mitchell Davis placing third followed by senior Matt Stone.

Stone said the meet provided experience and allowed the team to gauge its performance and prepare for later meets.

“We faced some really good ranked teams in a smaller meet,” Stone said. “It gave us a great opportunity to see where we are and set new goals for the season.”

In the 800 meter run, Simpson again traveled in a tight group. Senior Brandon Christensen led the Storm in this event with a time of 2:03.43, followed closely by junior Garret Woodson and sophomore Leif Jeppson.

The men’s 4×400 relay finished third with a time of 3:31.72. The 4×200 finished at 1:35.29 to wrap up the team events for the Storm.

Diehm led Simpson in the field events with a second-place performance in the high jump competition. Diehm cleared the bar set at 6-2 3/4 which was also a career best. Sophomore Brad Vogel and freshman Tyler Kenny notched top eight performances in the 55-meter dash. Vogel crossed the finish line 6.7 seconds with Kenny finishing in 6.93 seconds.

The men’s team is also looking to build off this weekend’s performance.

“I feel good about not only my performance but the whole team’s performance this weekend,” Vogel said.

The teams will look to improve on their solid performances as both men and women track teams travel to the Cornell Hilltop Invitational on Friday and Saturday, Feb. 3-4.