SIOUX FALLS – After winning three events at two competitions this past week, junior Emma Hertz of the University of Sioux Falls Women's Track and Field Squad has been named the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference Women's Field Athlete of the Week as announced Monday (May 6) by the league office.
 

Hertz became the second USF Women's Track and Field Team member to be named NSIC Athlete of the Week. She joined sophomore Taryn Ceglowski who was honored on Jan. 29, 2019 during the indoor season.

In 2019, Hertz has rewrote the record book in both the discus and the shot put. This weekend, she had four more NCAA DII provisional marks, a new discus record and three titles. A junior from Sioux Falls (O'Gorman HS), S.D., Hertz won the discus and shot put at the Mustang Twilight and won the shot put at the Howard Wood Dakota Relays. In her career, she has 12 throwing titles and won a combined seven discus (3) and shot put (4) titles this spring.

At the SMSU Mustang Twilight Meet, Hertz won the discus and shattered her own school record for the third time in less than a month by tossing the instrument a school record 51.57 meters or 169 feet 2 ½ inches, which is the best in the NSIC and eighth nationally. She broke her previous mark by nearly seven feet as she was sixth in the discus throw with a NCAA DII provisional mark of 49.51-meter (162' 5") at the Drake Relays on April 26. At Drake, she broke her mark of 49.34-meters (161' 10"), which she set at the USD Challenge on April 6.

Also at the SMSU Invite she captured a title in the shot put by throwing a NCAA DII provisional mark of 14.75 meters (48'4 ¾ feet) while also placing fifth in the hammer throw. With her shot put throw at SMSU, she ranks 11^th nationally and first the NSIC.

At the Howard Wood Relays, she finished second in the discus with a throw of 49.64 meters (162-10 ½) and won the shot put by tossing the instrument 14.04 meters (47-04 ¼). Both of those marks also met NCAA DII provisional standards but didn't reach the distance that she set at the SMSU Invite or earlier this spring. Of note, Hertz also owns the school's shot put record with a DII provisional mark of 15.22-meters (49' 11.25") at the Red Raider Open on April 20.

Hertz, who earned second team All-American honors at the NCAA DII Championship this winter, and her USF Track and Field teammates will compete next at the NSIC Championship on May 10-11 in Duluth, Minn.