March 2016: An ND Runner Month-In-Review

Well, there goes March. 1/4 of the year done already- crazy huh? Temperatures are starting to warm up, planting has begun in some places, and kids are getting outside to run outdoor track meets. The month of March can be kind of slow for track, because high school is just getting rolling, and most college athletes get some kind of a break after indoor season is done. However, that doesn't mean there wasn't some cool stuff going on.

Courtesy: nsuwolves.com

Women's Race of the Month #1: In what is quickly becoming a month ritual, Sasha Hovind (Lisbon & Sargent Co./Northern State) broke her own indoor 5k school record, but this time doing it on Division II's biggest stage: indoor nationals. She placed 8th with a time of 16:31.40, a new pr and record for her by 15 seconds. She also collected a first-team All-American honor for her top-8 finish. Her time also moves her up to the #4 spot on the ND women all-time 5k list.




Women's Race of the Month #2: Now that I've gone ahead and talked about high school indoor getting going, let's talk about a pretty darn fast race right from the get-go. The first meet of the 2016 ND indoor season actually took place at Concordia in Moorhead, MN on their small little 200 meter track. In the women's 1600, two of the fastest high school girls in the state, Peyton Frolek (Milnor-Wyndmere-Lidgerwood)- last spring's Class B state champ in the 800, 1600, and 3200- and Karley Ackley (Grand Forks Central)- second place last year in the Class A 1600, 3200, and State XC- raced each other and ended up running pretty fast. Frolek won in a time of 5:07, with Ackley right behind her in 5:08 (third place was then 15 seconds back in 5:23, and she's an All-State runner herself, to give you an idea of how fast they were going).

Frolek has been dominating
Class B girls distance
Courtesy: inforum.com

Ackley ran 10:38 in the 3200
last spring, the 4th-fastest
time by a ND high school girl
in state history
Courtesy: grandforksherald.com

So a little context here: let's look at the winning times in the 1600 for Class A and B girls in the last 5 years:
A:
2011- 5:13 (admittedly windy that year)
2012- 5:05
2013- 5:08
2014- 5:03
2015- 4:56
Avg: 5:05
B:
2011- 5:18
2012- 5:14
2013- 5:20
2014- 5:00
2015- 5:08
Avg: 5:12
So I conclude that 5:07 and 5:08 on a 200 meter indoor track and the beginning of the year is an impressive result, and I think it goes without saying that we can expect big things to come the rest of the season.

Nice uniforms, eh?
Courtesy: Michael Scott

Men's Race of the Month: As mentioned above, collegiate indoor national meets took place during the month of March, and to no surprise, Jake Leingang (Bismarck High/Oregon) ran in the men's 5000 meters at the D1 national meet (March 11-13). After running 13:46 in the 5k a few weeks before (and not competing at their conference meet, I'm guessing to rest for nationals), he ran 14:00 to take 9th place in the final, improving upon his 12th place finish from the 5k at outdoor nationals last summer. Top 8 in an individual event at nationals not only score points, but also secure All-American status for the season, which Leingang missed out on by 7 seconds (there was a decent sized gap between 8th and 9th place). Still that's a heckuva race, and it's worth mentioning that Leingang still has two years of indoor eligibility left, so expect big things there as well.


Other races at nationals to note:
Erin Teschuk (NDSU) finished 6th in the mile (4:38.94) and 4th in the 3000 (9:08.45) at the D1 national indoor meet, gathering first-team All-American honors in both.
Lexi Zeis (Bismarck High/U-Mary) finished 9th in the 3000 (9:35.32) at the D2 national indoor meet, gathering second-team All-American honors.

Other high school news to note:
Ty Boucher (Grand Forks Red River) ran the first sub-10 3200 meter time of the 2016 high school indoor season at a meet at Bemidji on March 29th. He won the race in 9:59.92 but was closely followed by David Hettich (GFC) in 10:03.07 and Ben Hutchinson (GFRR) in 10:06.42.

With April comes lots of exciting outdoor track action on top of the concluding high school indoor season. Additionally, we find ourselves a little more than a month away from the attention-grabbing Fargo Marathon. Until then, keep hoping for those beautiful 70-degree days.

(Oh and if there's anybody or anything that could be added to here, feel free to let me know)