Saturday, January 21, 2012

The Valparaiso men's track and field team totaled six top-five finishes en route to a fourth-place finish at the Wisconsin Invitational on Saturday afternoon.

The Crusaders finished the meet with 71 points for their fourth-place finish. The host Badgers took the team title with 150 points.

Sophomore Julian Smith (Chicago, Ill./Brother Rice) accounted for two of Valpo's top-fives on Saturday. Smith qualified second in the preliminaries of the 60m dash and placed third in the event final with a time of 6.95 seconds. The sophomore then ran to a fifth-place finish in the 200m dash, crossing the line in 22.50 seconds. Not far behind Smith was fellow sophomore Logan Coan (Chicago, Ill./Rich East), who moved into fourth position on Valpo's all-time chart in the event, finishing seventh with a time of 22.83 seconds.

Elsewhere on the track, sophomore Joe Holy (Bolingbrook, Ill./Joliet Catholic) placed fourth in the 400m dash, crossing the line in 53.11 seconds. The Crusaders' 'A' 4x400m relay squad, comprised of Coan, Derek Schnake (Chicago, Ill./Lincoln Park), Holy and Smith ran to a fifth-place finish with a time of 3:38.42.

On the infield, freshman Cy Badertscher (Janesville, Wis./Joseph A. Craig) earned points for the Crusaders with a pair of fourth-place finishes in the jumps. The first-year Crusader finished fourth in the long jump thanks to a leap of 18'6 1/2” before earning the same placement in the triple jump with a mark of 42'10 1/4”.

Valparaiso returns to action next Saturday, January 28 at the IPFW Quadrangular meet. The Crusaders will be taking on Oakland and Horizon League foe Detroit in addition to the host Mastodons.