Contact: Jenna McElroy, Sports Info & Social Media Intern, mcelroy@midwestconference.org
 
Championship Page
 
GRINNELL, Iowa – St. Norbert College has an opportunity to sweep the Midwest Conference (MWC) Indoor and Outdoor Track & Field Championships for the fourth straight year at home this weekend. The Green Knights host the 2019 MWC Championship with events starting at 12:30 p.m. Friday and 10:30 a.m. Saturday.
 
St. Norbert is led by sprinters Audrey Makope, Sarah Duff, and Maddie LeBrun with all three coming off appearances at the NCAA Indoor Championship. Makope ranks second in the league with a 100-meter dash time of 12.31 behind Illinois College’s Andrea Hyde top-25 national time of 12.21. Both Makope and Hyde competed in the 60-meter dash at the NCAA Indoor meet.
 
LeBrun and Duff are 1-2 in the 400 with times of 57.28 and 57.75 respectively. Cornell College’s Emma Cochrane also competed at the NCAA Indoor meet and enters the conference outdoor championship as the third sprinter under 58 seconds for the 400 with her time of 57.80.
 
Cochrane also competes in the one lap hurdle event as she ranks second with a time of 64.06 in the 400 hurdles. Monmouth’s Vanessa Caldwell hopes to sweep the hurdle events as she hold the top time in both the 100 400 hurdles this season. Caldwell is the lone athlete under 15 seconds in the 100 event with her time of 14.89 while also running 63.81 in the 400 hurdles. St. Norbert will also look to pick up quite a few points in the hurdles as the Green Knights of four in the top eight of each event.
 
Another event the Green Knights have dominated this season is the 800 where they have two of the top three fastest times in the conference. Sister’s Joyana and Graceanne Tarsa are first and third with times of 2:18.45 and 2:19.62 with Monmouth College’s Arika Hofmann in between with a time of 2:19.16. Two other MWC runners went under 2:20 this season in Beloit College’s Melissa Pelkey and St. Norbert’s Kelley Gardipee.
 
Add 1.75 laps and Gardipee is even better as she ranks second in the 1500 with a time of 4:52.53 just .01 behind Lake Forest College’s Yaneli Guarjardo’s conference-leading 4:52.52. The Tarsa sister’s fellow with Graceanne at 4:55.76 and Joyanna at 4:57.33.
 
Graceanne Tarsa ran the 14th best 3,000 steeplechase time in Division III as her time of 10:55.29 is a minute faster than the second ranked MWC athlete. Fellow Green Knight Alex Bruley ran a time of 11:55.19 just .11 better than Ripon College’s Madison King’s 11:55.30.
 
Tarsa can do it all as she also is tied for third in the pole vault with teammate Kirsten Carrigan as both cleared 3.30m at the Wisconsin Private College Championships. The two sit behind Grinnell College’s Sarina Kopf at 3.36m and fellow Green Knight Sara DeGroot’s 3.40m clearance.
 
Another multi-event star is Beloit’s Eva Laun-Smith who earned All-America honors in the triple jump indoors this season. Outdoors Laun-Smith ran the league’s second fastest 100 hurdle time of 15.03 and ranks first in both the long and triple jump with marks of 5.56m and 11.67m respectively. Finally, the sophomore ranks second in the javelin with a throw of 35.19m.
 
In the throwing circle, Grinnell’s Agne Lukoseviciute has been dominating the hammer throw this season as her toss of 54.44m from last weekend is over six meters farther than the next closest competitor. Lukoseviciute also has the best throw in the discus this season at 42.22m though her lead is a bit smaller as Cornell College’s Octavia Martinez got off a throw of 41.27m who has the farthest shot put throw at 12.93m.
 
The final throwing event of the championship is the javelin where Grinnell’s Cara Bresnahan leads after launching a school record throw of 38.11m at Monmouth last weekend. Back on the track, Bresnahan’s teammate Emma Schaefer holds the third fastest 5,000 time in a close field. Her time of 18:38.71 ranks just behind Cornell’s Dominique Fleming’s 18:38.23 and St. Norbert’s Gretchen Price’s 18:37.60.
 
Price also ranks in the top two in the 10,000 (39:37.02) between a pair of Fighting Scots. Freshman Caroline Young ran the fastest time this season by almost a minute at 38:26.23 while teammate Caitlyn Allen is only two seconds back of Price at 39:39.69.

The 2019 MWC Championship starts on Friday with the women’s hammer throw at 12:30 p.m. and the 10,000 on the track at 2:00 p.m. Find the full event schedule at the championship page.