Courtesy of GoCobbers.com, Release: May 12, 2007

Meet Rewind:

Meet Preview: Cobber MIAC Meet Preview

Meet Pictures: Cobber MIAC Meet Pictures

Meet Results: MIAC Championship Meet Results

Meet Recap:

COLLEGEVILLE, Minn. (5/12/07)-- The good for the Cobbers at the 2007 MIAC Championship Meet is that they snapped their two-year string of eighth-place finishes. The bad news is that they only improved one spot in breaking the streak. Concordia finished with a final team score of 55.0 points and placed seventh at the conference meet held at St. John's. The Johnnies won the conference title by posting a score of 225.0 points.

The 55.0 points for the Cobbers represent the most at an outdoor conference meet since the 2002 season when they finished sixth with a final total of 71.0 points. Concordia has not finished in the top three at the MIAC Outdoor Meet since the 2000 campaign when they finished second to St. Thomas. The last time the Cobbers won the MIAC title was back in 1956.

Individually the Cobbers were led by senior David Pettit who closed out his career by capturing first place in the high jump. Pettit posted a height of 6-4 in the finals on Friday. He becomes the first individual athlete to win an event at the outdoor meet since Nick Myran claimed the 1500 crown in 2005. That tied his season-best mark, which he set last weekend at the Ron Masanz Invite at MSU Moorhead.

Besides Pettit, Concordia had two other athletes earn MIAC All-Conference honors for finishing in the top three in an event. Nick Birchem unleashed a toss of 166-5 in the javelin and finished third. That distance is a career-best for the sophomore and ups his spot in the MIAC by one from last year's fourth-place finish. Preston Lyles capped his solid season by posting a third-place finish in the discus. He recorded a distance of 150-11, which is less than a foot off his career-best. Both Birchem and Lyles connected on their all-conference marks in the finals of the competition.

Concordia also had a pair of athletes garner all-conference honorable mention honors for finishing in fourth, fifth or sixth place. Once again the awards came from the Cobber field athletes. Sophomore Tom Flynn finished fourth in the javelin with a distance of 164-7. Flynn and Birchem once again represented the only time the Cobbers placed two athletes in the top five of an event. Last year Flynn finished second and Birchem was fourth.

Billy Oehlers backed up his all-conference award at the conference indoor meet in the shot put by placing sixth in the event at the outdoor meet. He recorded a mark of 47-7.75. That is a season-best for Oehlers.

The other notable performance by an individual at the meet was turned in by Orea Wright on Friday. Wright sprinted to a school record time of 10.89 in the 100-meter dash. Wright bested the previous school best mark of 11.04 set by John Andan in 2002. Unfortunately, Wright pulled a hamstring in the 4x100-meter relay and was unable to compete in the finals of the individual 100-meter dash.

The top relay team for the Cobbers was the 4x400-meter squad of Dusten Olejnicak, Paul Westmark, Josh Haddeland and Josh Smith. The quartet led the race from the start all the way until the final 10 meters of the race when they were passed by St. John's. The relay team, running for the first time all season since they broke the 4x400-meter relay indoor record, ran a 3:17.15 and broke the school record for the outdoor 4x400-meter relay. The old record was 3:18.08 and was set back in 1997. That time is also only .15 seconds off the national provisional qualifying time.