The women’s softball team had a rather exciting game this weekend against UW-Whitewater in the Conference Championship in Eau Claire. Stout earned the number five seed this year which led to them playing against number two seed UW-Whitewater. Last time Stout played Whitewater in regular season, Stout lost to them 11-0 and 8-3. So, when Stout came out on top on Friday and beat Whitewater 8-5, it was a huge upset, and an even bigger accomplishment for Stout. Unfortunately, following that game, Stout lost two games on Saturday against Osh Kosh and River Falls, ending their season in a double-elimination bracket. The first game against Osh Kosh ended in just a 3-0 loss. Against River Falls though, Stout had some rather unfortunate errors and ended up losing 14-2. Although Stout was not able to defend their conference champion title from last season, it was extremely exciting and definitely a season highlight to beat Whitewater on the first day of the tournament.
The men’s track and field team did extremely well this weekend at their conference meet in La Crosse on Friday and Saturday (May 1st and 2nd). As a team the men’s team finished fourth, which is the best conference finish for the men’s program since their fourth place finish by the 1998 team. Patrick Jenkins defended his conference titles in both the 10000-meter and 5000-meter. In the 5000-meter, Jenkins won by six seconds and won the 10000-meter by fourteen seconds. In addition to Jenkins taking conference titles, freshman Christian Lucchesi and senior Austin Zette also placed first at the meet this weekend. Lucchesi set a new personal record of 16’ 5.25” and won over second place by just two inches. This was Zett’s first conference title as well as he won discus throwing 177’ 11”. Second place was more than ten feet away from Zett’s mark. Other top finishes include Logan Loeffler’s fourth place finish in the decathlon, Gadi Samson’s second place finish in the 400-meter hurdles, and Kevin Salveson’s third place finish in the decathlon.
The women’s track and field team did not have as good as results as the men’s team on Friday and Saturday this past weekend, but broke one school record, and almost broke another one! The record that was broken was the 4×100 meter relay of Kate Johnson, Jada Hamilton, Alex Titterud, and Cheyenne Grey with a time of 48.26 seconds, as they finished third in the conference. Just inches short of the school record mark for long jump, Carli Clifton placed third in long jump with a jump of 18’ 8”, which was a whole foot farther than her personal best prior. Meagan Ward had a huge meet this past weekend. Ward took home the conference title for the heptathlon on Saturday. Ward placed first in four of the seven events-including javelin, shot-put, 800-meter run, and shot put- beating out her opponents by more than 150 points. Other individuals placing high are Lydia Meier, who placed third in the hammer throw and Laura Mesenburg, who placed fourth in the pole vault. The women’s team had the 400-meter run on lock down as Stout athletes Laurisa Titterud, Hamilton, and Molly Brion placed third, fifth, and sixth respectively on Saturday. As a team the women placed seventh out of nine.
Coming up for track and field is their two regular season meets, both at La Crosse before Nationals in Canton, New York.
Photo Credit: Layne Pitt