By RICK SOLEM
ricks@mwfbroadcasting.com
The men earned a Division III national title as a team, and a pair of relay teams won national titles for the women.
The UW-La Crosse men’s track and field team has won the Division III National Championship … again.
For the 12th time – the most by any Division III school in history – the Eagles have finished champions. Saturday, UW-L edged out UW-Eau Claire by two points to win it all at Roger Harring Stadium.
The top four teams were all UW schools – UW-Oshkosh was third and UW-Whitewater was fourth. This was the Eagles first national title since 2007. UW-L was also the indoor national champs.
Jaime Ludwigson, Meg Heafy, Claire Elliott and Maya Vazquez won the 400-meter-relay title (45.98 seconds) They broke a school record Thursday in preliminaries (45.97).
Teammates Jenna Halvorson, Rebecca Scheuermann, Shannon Klein and Elliott broke their own school record in winning the 1,600 relay (3:43.52).
Individually, the UW-L men came away with two runner-up finishes.
Senior Isaac Vazquez, an Arcadia, Wis., native, took second in the triple jump (50-feet, 5½-inches). Junior Sean Royer was second in the 800-meter run (1-minute, 50.51-seconds).
Other top finishers for the Eagles: Senior David Stillin finished third in the 5,000 (14:28.34), while teammates Alex Koenen and Jacob Peterson both finished sixth.
Koenen, a sophomore from West Salem, Wis., finished the 100 dash in 11.02 seconds, while Peterson, a junior, finished the 1,500 in 3:49.65.
Also helping greatly win the title for the Eagles were a pair of relay teams.
The 400 relay of David Sikorski, Koenen, Max Jessesski and Vazquez took third (40.95), while the 1,600 relay of Paul yerhot, Tyson Young, Nick Tehan and Aric Hoeschen finished fourth (3:10.53).
The UW-L women finished fifth in the national championships after being ranked first for most of the season and entered the meet the second-ranked team.
Along with the relay title, Ludwigson, a sophomore, also finished fourth in the 200 (24.7), sixth in the 100 (12.35) and seventh in the 100 hurdles (14.75). She leaves with four All-American honors for those events.