NORTHFIELD, Minn. – The St. Thomas men’s and women’s track and field teams continued their proud tradition this weekend at St. Olaf, winning the MIAC outdoor track and field titles.

The men’s team title is the Tommies’ sixth in the past seven seasons, while the women’s was its 10th straight. The women’s team’s run of success is especially meaningful to coach Joe Sweeney.

“Everyone in the program is so used to winning, it has become a part of their identity,” Sweeney said. “We certainly don’t take it for granted, but everyone has a tremendous amount of pride in our success.”

The St. Thomas women bested eleven other teams at the meet, and its score of 177 was nearly 70 points higher than runner-up Carleton.

Senior All-American Mallory Burnham continued her outstanding college career by winning the 100 and 200-meter dashes with times of 12.01 and 24.95, respectively. Burnham also set the meet record with a time of 14.13 in the 100-meter hurdles, but said she wasn’t thinking about setting any records.

“I didn’t realize it was a meet record until after the race when someone came and told me about it,” Burnham said. “Honestly, I’m not really too concerned about things like that, I’d rather focus on running the race and continuing to improve.”

Senior Abby Baier also turned in an impressive performance at the conference meet by winning the pole vault with a vault of 11’ 2 ¼”. Baier managed to win the event despite cold and windy weather conditions for pole vaulting.

“It wasn’t the best for pole vaulting because when you run into the wind, it catches the pole and you have to adjust it,” Baier said. “That’s something that comes into play during outdoor track season.”

Senior Haley Zajac set a personal best and earned second place in the hammer throw with a toss of 160’ 2”. Satisfied with her finish, Zajac said it ultimately came down to a tremendous effort by her fellow competitors.

“The girl from Gustavus who won just had a really good throw,” Zajac said. “The whole team, myself included, just came out here expecting to compete, and even though I didn’t come out on top, I was able to contribute to a team win.”

Junior Kayla Goeman won the 800-meter race with a personal best time of 2:12:40, and won the 4×400-meter relay along with juniors Erika and Angela Tipp and freshman Kayla Janto.

Sweeney said he was proud of the standout performances of certain individuals, but the team attitude is what impressed him the most.

“It’s great to see everyone push each other, and you can really tell they care about one another,” Sweeney said. “The team really rose to the occasion and continued the tradition of success here at St. Thomas.”

Men’s coach Steve Mathre was proud of the accomplishments of the women’s team and said his team has come to expect the same level of success.

“The slogan that we had for this meet was ‘exceeding expectations,’ and I’m proud of people who rose up, because those middle points are ultimately what decide meets,” Mathre said.

The men’s team finished ahead of runner-up St. Olaf by only 13.5 points, making it one of the closest results in the program’s history.

Senior Keaton Wendroth was aware of overall standings when he ran the 5000-meter, and even after running the 1500-meter two hours earlier, used a late kick to earn important points for the Tommies.

“My kick at the end of the 5k was the best of my life. There were two guys from St. Olaf ahead of me so I knew I had to gut it out and catch them,” Wendroth said. “At that point in the race, it was pretty much all mental.”

Having already won the MIAC decathlon earlier in the week, senior All-American Max Dunne added this year’s pole vault title to his list of accomplishments. Dunne said the MIAC meet was an opportunity to sharpen his skills in an individual event.

“I will most likely qualify for the NCAA’s in the decathlon, but this meet was an opportunity to fine-tune my pole vaulting skills,” Dunne said.

Senior Bryan Thell won the hammer throw with a distance of 172’ 3”, senior Joe Wistrcill won the 110-meter hurdles with a time of 15.20 and sophomore Brian Jarvey placed first in the 400-meter with a time of 48.25. Thell, Wistrcill and Jarvey were three of the 25 different athletes to earn points for the Tommies over the weekend .

Mathre said the win was so special because of valuable contributions by every member of the team.

“This title was won by everyone top to bottom, not just the stars and event winners. Everyone on this team matters and contributes in their own way,” Mathre said.

Members of the men’s and women’s team will compete in NCAA qualifying runs at the Lacrosse Last Chance Meet on May 15 before the NCAA Championships May 22-24.

Tom Pitzen can be reached at pitz2014@stthomas.edu.