By Paul Freelend
UNO’s track team came away from the Bearcat Invite in Maryville, Mo., with a number of positives, including first place finishes and NCAA qualifying marks.
Truman State won the 17-team meet with a team score of 109.5, while the Mavericks finished third with 90 points. Other North Central Conference teams were interspersed throughout the field, with North Dakota State finishing second with 95 points, North Dakota coming in fifth with 76, South Dakota finishing sixth with 60, South Dakota State finishing with 40 points in 10th, Morningside ending up 11th with 28 and Augustana finishing 13th with 10. Iowa State finished seventh in the team race with 46 points.
Carly Lambert pulled in a pair of first-place finishes to pace the Mavericks. Lambert won the 200-meter dash in a time of 24.92 seconds while also coming in first in the 100-meter dash in 11.84 seconds, an NCAA provisional qualifying time. Lambert’s time of 11.66 seconds in the 100 preliminaries set a new UNO record.
Michelle Ellingson also broke a Maverick outdoor record, running the 5,000-meter run in 17:48.0 to take first place, set a new school record and pick up a provisional qualifying mark. UNO’s other top individual finisher was Melissa Meisinger, who picked up her team’s third provisional qualifying mark with an effort of 38 feet 3.5 inches in the triple jump.
UNO’s 400-meter relay team also brought home a first-place finish for the Mavericks, finishing in a time of 47.71 seconds to provisionally qualify for the NCAA Division II Outdoor Nationals.
