Pride own the pole vault to highlight Chelsey M. Henkenius Invite

WAVERLY, Iowa - Getting their 2023 started just before classes get back in session, the Clarke University track and field team earned three individual event wins at the Wartburg University hosted Chelsey M. Henkenius Invite on Saturday on their way to both teams capturing fourth place.

Two of those three wins came in the pole vault event as the Pride got the win on both the men's and women's side with James Vandun setting a new personal best with his clearance of 4.10 meters for an improvement on his sixth-best mark in school history. Timothy Miller finished in fourth place to also score points for Clarke after vaulting over the bar at 3.80 meters.

Emma Grant and Autumn McLaughlin split the victory on the women's side, as both cleared the bar at 3.05 meters on their first attempt, as that height set a new personal best in the early part of McLaughlin's freshman season and was just .15 mters off of the top mark in Grant's career. Along with the tie at the top of the leaderboard in the women's pole vault, Grace Squires finished in third place as she also cleared the 3.05-meter bar but on her second try and Malia Beich finished in fifth at a 2.75 clearance.

The third event win for CU came on the women's side on the track as Rory Bickler earned a win in the mile with a time of 5:39.92 as the junior edged our Mount Mercy's J'Lyn Knutson by a tenth of a second. Bickler also ran in the 3000-meter run to finish fourth with a time of 11:13.76 about a second away from her personal best time that she set last February.

Another Clarke name at the top of the leaderboard in an event was Sydney Norman's second place finish in the high jump as she cleared 1.50 meters, tying her personal best while at Clarke. Norman led a group of four high jumpers with Gwen Bottom (1.45m), Anyah Ranson (1.40m), and Isabelle Matthews (1.35m) all participating for the Pride.

On the men's side, the freshmen pair of distance runners in Carson Sansenbach and Bryce Kondos each earned their own third place finishes as Sansenbach finished third in the 600 meters with a time of 1:25.86, ahead of Kole Haverly's seventh place 1:29.03 while Kondos finished third in the 800 meters, clocking in at 2:07.19.

The full results can be viewed at the following link: https://clarkepride.com/sports/mtrack/2022-23/files/results.pdf 

Clarke track and field will stay in Dubuque for their next meet to be hosted by the University of Dubuque on Saturday, Jan. 21.