Women finish 2nd, men 3rd in indoor finals, two Bison named MVP
NDSU women
The North Dakota State University women’s track & field teams finished in second place at the Summit League Indoor Championships this past weekend in Grand Forks, N.D. The Bison, with 152 points, finished a distant second to the University of South Dakota, who finished with 200.5 points. The win by the Coyotes snapped NDSU’s 14-year streak of indoor conference championships. When including outdoor titles, the Bison women had won 27 conference championships in a row.
Three Bison women claimed individual titles. In the shot put, senior thrower Amanda Anderson won the title with a throw of 51-1 (15.57m) on Saturday. On Friday, another senior thrower, Amy Phillips, successfully defended her title in the weight throw, posting a mark of 65-02.00 (19.86m). Joining Phillips, another senior, distance runner Kelby Anderson ran away with the 3000m title in 9:29.02 for the second-fastest time of her career.
Anderson, who also finished second in both the mile (4:52.47) and the 5000m (16:50.33), was named the championship’s Most Valuable Player for field events as the highest individual point-earner in the championships.
Besides Anderson, there were other runner-up finishes for the Bison women. Jodi Lipp finished second in the triple jump (40-00.75 (12.21m), Nell Graham was the runner-up in the 400m after running an indoor personal best of 55.21, and the 4x400m relay team of Graham, Claire Howell, Kaci Cooper and Angel Pratt finished second while running 3:45.93.
NDSU men
The North Dakota State University men’s track & field team finished third in the Summit League Indoor Championships in Grand Forks, N.D. this past weekend. The Bison scored 157 points behind runner-up South Dakota (171) and league champion South Dakota State (173).
The Bison had four individual champions at the championships. Junior Eric VanErp set a new personal best in winning the heptathlon with a score of 5,091, moving him to eight on the all-time NDSU list. Kristoffer Thomsen won the shot put throwing a season-best 64-02.25 (19.56m). On Friday, junior Brandon Lewis successfully defended his Summit League long jump title, winning with a mark of 24-02.25 (7.37m) and Trevor Otterdahl launched a new career-best 74-05.50 (22.69m) in the weight throw to capture the first individual conference championship of his career. That toss was also good enough to take over sixth place in the NCAA this season for that event.
Otterdahl, a senior, earned a total of 18 individual points from his performances in the throwing events earning him the championship’s Most Valuable Player honor for men’s field athletes.