SIOUX FALLS – Six members of the University of Sioux Falls Indoor Track and Field Team will compete at the NCAA Division II Men's and Women's Indoor Championships on March 8-9 in Pittsburg, Kansas at the Robert W. Plaster Center.
 
Student-athletes qualified for the championships by reaching the automatic and provisional standards established for each event.
 
The 2019 NCAA Division II Men's and Women's Indoor Track and Field Championships Committee announced the field total and included 540 participants with 270 men and 270 women. USF's six student-athletes will be among 56 from the NSIC and that total includes 32 women and 24 men across 49 events.
 
2018 NCAA Indoor Championship Highlights
In thrilling fashion, USF Track & Field posted two All-American finishes on the first day of the 2018  NCAA Indoor Championships. Kimberly Peterson earned her third career All-American honor and highest career national meet finish with a runner-up 4.12-meter (13' 6.25") mark in the women's pole vault with two clutch third-attempt clearances. The USF men's distance medley relay squad of Billy Beseman, Logan Hansen, Zach Lundberg and Mason Phillips extended the program's strong tradition in the DMR, taking eighth with a school record time of 9:55.01. Phillips and freshman Taryn Ceglowski both competed in the men's and women's mile prelims, respectively, but finished outside the top nine advancing to the finals.
 
USF competing athletes
The USF 2019 qualifiers, coached by USF Track and Field/Cross Country Director Doug Petersen, will compete in four events at the nationals. The athletes, event, distance and placing is as follows: sophomore Emma Hertz, women's shot put 14.83 meters (48'8), 14th; junior Zach Lundberg, 3,000-meter run, 8:13.71, 14th; junior Tristan Zawadzki, pole vault, 5.09 meters (16-8 ¼), 11th; and the men's distance medley relay of Lundberg, senior Trey Furgeson, senior Billy Beseman, senior Mason Phillips and alternate senior Jase Kraft, 9:48.17, seventh. 
 
Lundberg will compete individually for the first time in the 3,000-meter run. He will also be part of a tradition-rich DMR squad, which clocked a school record at the Stinger Invite at Black Hills State to earn the bid to nationals. USF has earned first team All-American honors in the DMR in 2015 (eighth place) and 2018 (eighth place) and was second team All-American in 2017 (10th place). Hertz and Zawadzki will compete individually at nationals for the first time.
 
Watch Live
The NCAA Indoor Championships will be broadcast live on NCAA.com. To find all the NCAA events available for streaming, visit NCAA.com/liveschedule. Live results for all field and track events, CLICK HERE.
 
Schedule of Events
Zawadzki and the Men's DMR team will compete in the first day of the meet, while Hertz and Lundberg will perform on day two. The schedule of events for USF athletes is below (all times Central) and a full meet schedule is available HERE.
 
Friday, March 8
3:25 p.m. Men's Pole Vault  - Tristan Zawadzki
7:00 p.m. Men's DMR – Lundberg, Furgeson, Beseman, Phillips
 
Saturday, March 9
2:30 p.m. Women's Shot Put – Emma Hertz
7:25 p.m. Men's 3,000-meter run – Zach Lundberg
 
Men's DMR heads into weekend as the seventh seed
The men's DMR team of Phillips, Lundberg, Frugeson and Beseman hold the seventh fastest time in DII after their NCAA qualifying time of 10:01.83 (converted to 9:48.17) at the Stinger Open on Feb. 15. The DMR team also produced a NCAA provisional time of 10:17.57 at the Mines Invitational (Jan. 25). The qualifying time converted to 9:53.82 and ranked fifth in DII at the time. The USF DMR finished third overall at the Mines Invite behind Colorado Mines (10:09.61) and CSU-Pueblo (10:11.50).
 
Lundberg takes NSIC title in men's 3,000-meter run
Lundberg qualified for the finals in the 3,000-meter run with a first place time of 8:19.45 at the NSIC Indoor Championships on Feb. 22-23. This clocking converted to 8:13.71 which ranks him 15th going into the NCAA Indoor Championships this weekend. Lundberg's converted time is a program-high and ranks him first in school history in the event.
 
At the Northwest Missouri State Mel Tjeerdsma Classic (Dec. 7), Lundberg took second behind Phillips in the men's 5,000-meter run with a 14:18.98, which also would have broken the previous USF record and is the 23^rd best in DII. Lundberg sits second in the USF top-10 list in the 5K, first in the men's 3,000-meter run and second in the men's 1,000-meter (2:27.35) at the SDSU Indoor Classic (Feb. 8-9).
 
Zawadzki has taken first in six of seven meets this season
A junior from San Diego, Calif., Zawadzki is coming off of a big time showing at the NSIC Indoor Championships where he won the title with an NCAA DII provisional mark 5.09-meter (16' 8.25") jump. Zawadski's vault places him fifth all-time at USF and 11^th in the DII. Zawadzki also has recorded a vault of 5.0-meters (16' 4.75") at the SJU Invite, which ranked 16^th in NCAA DII and is a national provisional qualifying mark. Zawakski's jump also earned him his first NSIC Field Athlete of the Week honor this season on Feb. 12. On the season, Zawadzki has won the vault competition at six of seven meets and produced four NCAA provisional marks. 
 
Hertz has record-breaking indoor season
Hertz, a junior from Sioux Falls, has broken the USF school mark in the women's shot put three different times this season. She first broke the record, which she also held from her 2018 throw of 44' 5.25", at the MSU Multi and Open (Jan. 25-26), with a throw of 13.98-meters (45' 10.50"). Hertz turned around the next weekend and broke her own record with a distance of 14.26-meters (46' 9.50") at the MSU Ted Nelson Classic (Feb. 2). Then, Hertz set the USF record in women's shot put at the SDSU Last Chance meet (Feb. 15) with a first place throw and an NCAA provisional mark of 14.83-meters (48' 8"), which ranks 14^th in DII. Most recently, Hertz claimed a fourth place result in the women's shot put at the NSIC Championships with a distance of 14.28-meters (46' 10.25").