WAVERLY, Iowa – The Wartburg College top-ranked men's track & field team captured the program's 11
th American Rivers Conference Indoor Title in program history, totaling 172 team points.
Wartburg was led by its distance and sprinting crews, winning nine events combined.
The Knights opened running events with a pair of titles from its distance running squad. The Distance Medley Relay team of
Frosty Lorimer,
Sean Henson,
Carter Cruise, and
Sam Madson won with a time of 10:16.81. Madson anchored the race with a 1,600-meter time of 4:15.7.
Later, the 4x800-meter relay team of Madson, Lorimer, Heinzman, and
Dalton Martin set a record time and top finish at 7:46.78, breaking a championship meet record and breaking the previous Wartburg record set in 2013 by six seconds.
Joe Freiburger continued his senior season dominance in the 5,000-meter run, winning for a second consecutive season with a facility and meet record time of 14:25.87, the second-best time in Wartburg indoor history.
Christopher Collet accounted for 20 team points, winning the mile and the 3,000-meter run. He was awarded the Track MVP.
Collet and
Matt Heinzman finished first and second in the mile at 4:15.68 and 4:16.34, respectively to tally 18 team points. Collet followed up his mile victory later with a top finish in the 3K with a time of 8:30.74.
The sprinter trio of
Deyton Love,
Dallas Wright, and
Derrick Smith each broke Wartburg indoor records and contributed 30 team points with first place finishes. Love broke his own school record set during the Liz Wuertz Triangular (2/20/21) in the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 8.06, a facility and meet record.
In the 400-meter dash, Wright broke a Wartburg record with a time of 48.42. He previously held the second-best time, set last season. His A-R-C title time breaks the Wartburg record time of 48.45 set by Josh Hauser in 2006.
Smith just finished past Loras' Josh Smith with a time of 21.76 in the 200-meter dash, good for a facility record. His time beats the Wartburg indoor record set by teammate
Dallas Wright (22.05), set in 2020.
Wartburg sealed the team victory with a victory in the 4x400-meter relay from
Dallas Wright,
Zach Abbey,
Derrick Smith, and
Wyatt Schmidt. The quartet set a championship meet record with a time of 3:17.54 meet record, the fifth-best time on the Wartburg top 10 list.
All-Conference Performers:
| Derrick Smith |
60m |
3rd |
| Derrick Smith |
200m |
1st |
| Dallas Wright |
400m |
1st |
| Dalton Martin |
800 |
2nd |
| Wyatt Schmidt |
800m |
3rd |
| Christopher Collet |
Mile |
1st |
| Matt Heinzman |
Mile |
2nd |
| Christopher Collet |
3,000m |
1st |
| Joe Freiburger |
5,000m |
1st |
| Morgan Shirley-Fairbairn |
5,000m |
3rd |
| Deyton Love |
60H |
1st |
| Dallas Wright |
60H |
3rd |
| Dallas Wright, Zach Abbey, Derrick Smith, Wyatt Schmidt |
4x400 |
1st |
| Sam Madson, Frosty Lorimer, Matt Heinzman, Dalton Martin |
4x800 |
1st |
| Frosty Lorimer, Sean Henson, Carter Cruise, Sam Madson |
DMR |
1st |
Marcus Newsom and his staff were awarded the A-R-C Coaching Staff of the Year.
Up next, Wartburg hosts the Division III Elite Indoor Championships, March 12-13 at Hoover Fieldhouse.
