Braves Claim Two Titles in Opening Day of MVC Championship

day 1 results

Men's Track and Field 2/24/2018 9:40:00 PM

Cedar Falls, Iowa – The Bradley track and field teams won two conference titles in the first day of competition at the Missouri Valley Conference Indoor Championship. Junior Michael Ward became the first BU man to win the 5,000m crown at the championship, while the Braves also claimed the men's distance medley relay for the third time in four years.

Ward won his second individual title at a conference title, also claiming the 5,000m run at the 2016 MVC Outdoor Championship. The redshirt junior made a late push to pull away from the field, finishing with a time of 14:49.53 in his first career running of the event at the collegiate level, which also ranks sixth in school history. Ward finished more than two seconds ahead of second place and joins Haran Dunderdale as the only two BU men to win individual track titles for the Braves at the indoor meet.

Junior Will Anderson and sophomore Jake Hoffert also scored for the Braves, placing fourth in 14:52.96 and sixth in 14:54.86, respectively.

The men then made it two-for-two in championship runs later in the night when sophomore Alec Hartman, junior David Shadid, sophomore Nick Porter and senior Daniel Gagne teamed to win the distance medley relay. Gagne anchored the run and pulled away in the mile leg as BU finished with a mark of 10:01.72 – the second-best time in school history. Gagne earned his third DMR championship, while Hartman and Shadid won for the second time and Porter for the first time.

The Bradley women also scored in the 5,000m run and DMR. Senior Natalie Burant placed fourth in 17:30.09, while the team of junior Niamh Markham, sophomore Savana Peterson, junior Kathryn Adelman and junior Brooke Nusser recorded a time of 12:15.29 to place fourth in the relay.

The remainder of the day was spent in preliminaries as seven Braves qualified for the finals on Sunday, highlighted by three qualifiers in the men's 800m run. Hartman, Shadid and sophomore Scott Seymour all secured points by finishing in the top eight on Saturday.

Two Braves also reached the mile finals as Taylor Floyd Mews posted a time of 4:14.31 and Gagne finished in 4:17.22 to advance to Sunday.

Markham and Nusser added to their fourth-place finish in the DMR by reaching the finals of their respective events for the Bradley women. Markham posted a time of 2:14.29 to qualify in the 800m run, while Nusser's mark of 5:01.99 helped her advance in the mile.

Overall, the Bradley men sit in fourth place of nine teams so far with 28 points, while the women are sixth of 10 schools with 10 points after one day of competition.

The championship wraps up tomorrow afternoon at Northern Iowa with track events slated to begin at 1 p.m.

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