With the outdoor season underway, the Simpson men’s and women’s track team is looking to make an impression in the conference in upcoming meets.

The men’s and women’s track team recently went through its transition from the indoor to outdoor season at the Wartburg Select on April 1. The Storm men placed 14th overall with freshman Brad Vogel placing the highest out of the bunch at 9th place in the 100-meter dash.

“So far the season is going good even though we’ve only had one meet,” freshman Brad Vogel said. “We have a lot of room to improve.”

The Storm women placed 11th overall. Senior Chelsey Degen provisionally qualified for the NCAA championships after placing second in the discus with a toss of 143 feet, 9 inches. Junior Kinsey Bak placed second in the high jump after clearing 5-3.

With it only being their first meet, there is still plenty of time for the Storm to improve minor mistakes and succeed.

“With the ability to train outside, we’ve really been working on some of the longer sprint and hurdle events as well as field events that cannot be practiced in Cowles,” junior Nicole Mulder said.

Another important issue the Storm is facing is injuries. Vogel said that the team is trying to make sure that everyone is staying healthy.

“We have had a few guys that have been injured and missed out on our last meet,” Vogel said. “We also need to keep working hard in practice.”

Regardless of the challenges the Storm is facing, they are still striving to accomplish their team goals.

“As a team, we are hoping to score more points in the conference meet and qualify events for nationals,” sophomore John Cord said. “Outdoor season has a few more events than indoor, so we have more chances to score.”

The Storm improved drastically at their second outdoor meet at Cornell.

At the Cornell Invite this past weekend, the Storm men and women placed second out of 13 teams and had three teammates take home first place awards.

Cord received first place in the triple jump, junior Matt Stone won the 800 meters and junior Ryan Edwardson won the 5,000 meters.

The women also had first place winners. Degen won the discus throw, senior Lauren Anderson won the 100 meters hurdles and senior Molly Sabers won the triple jump.

Degen’s throw now automatically qualifies for the NCAA Championship and she currently holds the first place position in the NCAA Division III rankings.

Bak provisionally qualified at the Cornell Invite with a high jump of 5-5 3/4, placing second at the meet and 6th in the NCAA Division III pool.

Both the men and women travel to Des Moines for the Jim Duncan Invite this weekend at Drake University.