2017 Summit League Outdoor Track & Field Championships Results
FARGO, N.D.–South Dakota captured seven events on the final day of the Summit League Outdoor Track & Field Championships to bring the total to 11 Summit League champions on Schlanser Track.
The Coyote women finished runner-up in the race for the team title with 241 points while the Coyote men took third with 194 points. North Dakota State swept the men's and women's team races. USD's women place second for the third-straight year.
South Dakota senior
Amber Eichkorn was named the 2017 Summit League Women's Track Championship MVP. Eichkorn became the first female Coyote to earn an MVP award at the outdoor meet by scoring 26 points in the three days. Eichkorn swept the 10,000 and 5,000 meters for the third time in her career and placed third in the 1,500 meters.
The 2017 Summit League Women's Newcomer of the Championship was USD freshman
Britny Kerr. It marks the fifth time a Coyote has garnered the women's award. Kerr collected 15 points by finishing third in the 110 hurdles, fourth in the high jump, sixth in the heptathlon and eighth in the triple jump.
Setting a new Summit League Championship record, freshman
Chris Nilsen soared over 18 feet, 1 inch, to capture the men's pole vault. Classmate
Ethan Bray vaulted a personal best 17-5. Five different USD vaulters have won the men's pole vault consecutively since 2013.
Junior
Gawain Williams captured his third-straight title in the men's 100 meters with a clocking of 10.40 seconds. Senior
Jack Thony captured all-Summit honors in 10.65 seconds for third and sophomore
Joe Reagan placed fourth.
Eichkorn led wire to wire in the 5,000 meters to capture her sixth overall Summit League title outdoors. She crossed the tape in the 5,000 meters in 17:06.76. The Coyotes scored 25 points in the event with sophomore
Megan Billington earning all-Summit honors in third with a time of 17:34.04. Junior
Lindsay Joyce and sophomore
Madeline Huglen took fourth and fifth, respectively.
Junior
Shanice Cannigan defended her Summit League title in the 100-meter hurdles with a time of 13.76 seconds. Kerr placed third for all-league honors in a collegiate best 14.13 seconds. Sophomore
Haley Bruggeman and freshman
Carmen Bermudez took sixth and seventh, respectively.
Senior
Jay Cooper swept the men's 110-meter and 400-meter hurdles. Cooper defended the 400 hurdles by tying his personal best time of 52.46 seconds. He added his first title in the 110 hurdles with a personal best of 14.31 seconds. Junior
Tomas Kamenik placed fourth in the 400 hurdles while sophomore
Hunter Leighton and freshman
Dennis Parsley took sixth and seventh in the 110 hurdles.
The men's 4x100-meter relay captured USD's third title in the event with a time of 40.41 seconds. Thony led off, Reagan and freshman
Sam Clark ran the middle legs and Williams anchored the relay.
The women's 4x100-meter relay of sophomore
Karina Dufoe, Cannigan, freshman
Samara Spencer and freshman
Tasheka Gordon broke the South Dakota program record with a clocking of 45.87 seconds. The relay finished runner-up.
South Dakota swept second through fifth in the men's discus. Sophomore
Ben Hammer and senior
Dustin Valind earned all-Summit honors in second and third, respectively. Hammer sent the discus 173-1 and Valind launched it 171-11. Juniors
Ethan Fenchel and
Jacob Barents took fourth and fifth.
Sophomores
Jacob Simmons and
Eldon Warner garnered all-league honors in the 1,500 meters with a pair of career best times. Simmons finished runner-up in 3:50.02, while Warner crossed the line in 3:50.99.
Warner and Simmons also took third and fourth, respectively, in the 800 meters. Warner was edged out at the line to finish third in 1:52.11.
Eichkorn clocked 4:29.58 for third in the 1,500 meters while leading a pack of Coyotes across the finish line. Senior
Nicole Schmidt took fourth, Joyce was fifth and Huglen finished sixth.
Junior
Brooke Ireland set a new personal best of 55.19 seconds in the 400 meters to place third and capture all-league honors.
Three members of the women's 4x100 relay, Dufoe, Spencer and Gordon, swept third through fifth in the open 100 meters, respectively. Dufoe clocked 11.93 seconds, one hundredth of a second off her personal best, to take home all-Summit honors. Dufoe added a fifth-place finish in the 200 meters.
Cannigan added a third-place finish in the 400 hurdles in 1:03.03 for all-league honors. Bruggeman took seventh.
Senior
Meghan Dennis and sophomore
Molly Schiermeyer took fourth and seventh, respectively, in the discus.
Sophomore
Brennan Schmidt placed fifth in the 400 meters.
Spencer took fifth in the triple jump.
Thony added a seventh-place finish in the 200 meters.
To cap off his third distance race in three days, junior
Brice Cowman placed seventh in the 5,000 meters.
Joyce completed her trifecta of races with an eighth-place finish in the 800 meters.
A condensed list of the Coyotes' 11 Summit League champions and the 2017 Summit League Championship award winners are available below.
2017 Summit League Champions
Women's pole vault:
Emily Grove, 13-7 ¾
Women's 10,000 meters:
Amber Eichkorn, 35:57.60
Women's shot put:
Danielle Waldner, 56-11 ½
Men's high jump:
Zack Anderson, 7-1
Men's 4x100 relay:
Jack Thony,
Joe Reagan,
Sam Clark,
Gawain Williams, 40.41
Women's 100 hurdles:
Shanice Cannigan, 13.76
Men's 110 hurdles:
Jay Cooper, 14.31
Men's 100 meters:
Gawain Williams, 10.40
Men's pole vault:
Chris Nilsen, 18-1
Men's 400 hurdles:
Jay Cooper, 52.46
Women's 5,000 meters:
Amber Eichkorn, 17:06.76
2017 Summit League Championship Award Winners
Women's Track MVP: Amber Eichkorn, USD
Women's Field MVP: Katelyn Weimerskirch, NDSU
Women's Newcomer of the Year: Britny Kerr, USD
Men's Track MVP: Kyle Burdick, SDSU
Men's Field MVP: Steffan Stroh, NDSU & Bryant Courter, SDSU
Men's Newcomer of the Year: Bryant Courter, SDSU
Up next for the Coyote track and field team is the NCAA West Preliminaries in Austin, Texas, from May 25-27.
