College track and field: UW-Eau Claire men win outdoor national championship

May 29—The UW-Eau Claire men's track and field program capped off a banner year by winning the NCAA Division III outdoor national championship on Saturday in Geneva, Ohio.

The Blugolds scored 73 points to top the field and win their second outdoor title in program history. Runner-up John Carroll finished with 48 points. The outdoor championship comes a little over two months after Eau Claire won a share of the indoor national title in March.

Eau Claire's 73 points are the most the Blugolds have ever tallied at the outdoor national meet. It was the highest number posted by a team at the meet since 2007. The Blugolds' only other outdoor national championship came in 2019. This is the first time they've brought home both an indoor and outdoor national title in the same year.

"You never have a perfect meet, but this is probably about as close as you can get to perfect," Blugolds decathlete Mitch Stegeman said after the team returned to Eau Claire Sunday.

The Blugolds had several individual national champions to help propel them up the standings. Marcus Weaver kicked things off by winning the javelin competition on Thursday. He added a national title in decathlon on Friday. Sam Verkerke got in on the fun on the final day of competition, winning the 1,500-meter run to become a national champion.

But they were far from the only Blugolds contributing team points.

"It was incredible. Almost everyone placed," Verkerke said. "That was awesome to see. One thing too is we had individual champions, but our names aren't going up on a wall for that. As a team, we're getting a banner and everyone put into that."

Several Blugolds earned All-America status by placing near the top of their respective events. That included the 4x100-meter relay team that took third and set a new school record. The unit featured Eau Claire North alumni Arik Skifstad and Charlie Wolter. Skifstad was also part of the third-place 4x400 relay.

Abrahm Schroedl was the national runner-up in pole vault and took third in decathlon. Stegeman was fourth in decathlon. Connor Dolan became an All-American in steeplechase by taking fifth. Yakob Ekouke took fifth in both discus and shot put.

It was a combination that no other team could come close to matching.

"My jaw dropped," Blugolds coach Chip Schneider said. "It was definitely a little unexpected as far as how well it went. ... I don't know if there were many things that could have gone better than they did."

By taking both the indoor and outdoor national titles this year, the Blugold men entered a small group of Division III programs which have done so. Only three other schools have done it since 2010.

"It's hard to do something we haven't done, and we had not done that," Schneider said. "It's very special. To win an indoor and an outdoor title, in my lifetime I wasn't sure as a coach that that was going to happen. To have it happen, I've got a lot of years left so now I'm going to want to do it again."

The Eau Claire men now own two outdoor national championships and three indoor titles. All of them have come since 2015.

"I think the cool thing about is that it all comes from belief," Weaver, the national champion in decathlon, said. "If you don't start with a team who thinks you can do it, you won't be able to do it. I remember being a freshman, and they had just come off winning outdoor, and they said 'We're going to do this again. This isn't going to be a one-time thing.' They preached it into existence, and that was the culture."

The Blugold women finished in 22nd place. Catie Fobbe was the runner-up in shot put and Kady Kochendorfer and Kayla Behnke were All-Americans in triple jump and discus, respectively.

Blue Devils take 11th

The UW-Stout men finished tied for 11th at the meet. The Blue Devils produced a few All-Americans to close out the season.

Kevin Ruechel, the defending champion in the shot put, added a runner-up finish to finish up his college career. His mark of 57 feet, 8.25 inches stood as the best until the final throw of the day, when Carthage's Joseph White launched one 58 feet, 8.25 inches to win the national title.

Jacob Bugella took third in hammer throw to end his Blue Devils career as an All-American. He plans to attend graduate school at the University of Wisconsin and compete for the Badgers.

Hannah Zastrow and Demi Ploor both earned All-America status for the Stout women. They took seventh place in the 100 hurdles and hammer throw, respectively. Zastrow set a new school record with a time of 14 seconds.