Over the weekend, the South Dakota State Jackrabbits competed in the Summit League Indoor Track and Field Meet which ended well for SDSU with the men’s team winning the Summit League title and the women’s team placing third.

This marks two out of the last four years where the SDSU men’s team has taken the gold in the meet.

Men’s

Ben Olson, who was named MVP of the meet, led the mile with a time of four minutes and 7.22 seconds, followed by teammates Daniel Burkhalter who placed second at 4:07.35, and Tom Breuckman who finished third at 4:08.11 which was a career-best for him.

Olson also won another gold in the 3,000-meter run with a meet record time of 8:09.82 and took second in the 5,000-meter run at 14:12.41 behind fellow Jackrabbit Joseph Minor-Williams at 14:12.33. Both Minor-Williams and Olson beat the previous 5,000-meter meet record which was set in 2019.

Pierre Lear smashed the SDSU record for the 60-meter hurdles and is the first-ever Jackrabbit to complete the race under eight seconds. Lear took first with a quick time of 7.98 seconds.

Men’s 4×400-meter relay took third place at 3:15.16 which is also the 3rd best in Jacks history. Emmanual Phoulom-Smith, Pierre Lear, Thailan Hallman and Reid Pierzinski were the runners who represented SDSU in the event.

Daniel Clarke stole third place in the 60-meter dash finals with a time of 6.84 seconds.

In total, the men’s team finished with a score of 173 points, narrowly edging out South Dakota’s 171 points.

Women’s

Rich-Ann Archer stole the show on the women’s side as she broke the Summit League Championship meet record in the 60-meter dash with a time of 7.32 seconds and took first place along with it. Archer also placed second in the 200-meter run at 23.93 seconds. She also broke the school record that she set the day before. Archer is also  the first female in SDSU history to complete the event in under 24 seconds.

Oksana Johnson took gold in the 800-meter run with a stunning time of 2:10.02.

Also placing 1st was Cailee Peterson who ran the mile in just under five minutes. Her official time was 4:49.55.

Sprinter Savannah Risseeuw took runner-up in the 60-meter hurdle finals.

Leah Hansen was first to finish the women’s 5,000-meter run. Her time of 16:48.63 was enough to crown her the champion of the event.

As well as the men’s relay team, the South Dakota State women’s 4×400-meter relay team, consisting of Oksana Johnson, Elizabeth Gillingham, Tori Glazier and Cerington Jones placed third on the podium for the event.

Jackrabbit thrower, Faith Leiseth, had her career-best distance of 50-07.50, which was not only enough to put her in second on the day, but also the second farthest throw in SDSU history.

Overall, the women’s team finished third in the meet with 135.5 points, behind South Dakota with 200.5 points and North Dakota State with 152 points.