MILWAUKEE — The Carthage men's and women's track and field teams continued their outdoor season on Thursday, competing at the Wisconsin Private College Championships at Raabe Stadium.

"With the cold temperature today our main objective was to get out of this meet with everyone healthy," said men's head coach Josh Henry. "Because of this, we chose to not race anyone in an event shorter than 400 meters. Despite leaving a fair amount of events open, we had a lot of positive steps taken today."

Both teams saw early success in the throws, as Aubrey Tesch picked up her first of multiple wins on the day in the javelin with a mark of 29.52 meters. In the men's hammer, Matthew Ausse out-threw his personal best by nearly six meters to take first place with a throw of 51.30 meters, while Diego Torrez placed second at 46.74 meters, and Nick Huff fourth at 40.31 meters.

Alexis Mattox began her strong day with a first-place finish in the hammer with a PR at 43.48 meters, before winning the shot put as well at 12.09 meters. Torrez would place second for the men's team in the shot put after hitting 12.92 meters, before Joseph White placed second in the discus. For the women, last week's conference field athlete of the week Nicole Tarpley won the discus on a throw of 37.54 meters, with Mattox placing second.

In the jumps, Ben Jensen scored for the Firebirds with a seventh-place finish after leaping 5.63 meters, before Edelmar Morales-Rivera and Mason DeLille took fourth and fifth, respectively, in the triple jump. In the pole vault, Alanna Chavez placed sixth for the women while Aidan O'Neill placed fourth for the men. In the women's high jump, Tesch would take first place in the event for the seventh time this year, while Pearl Moss placed third.

On the track, Thomas Olenek would win the men's 10,000-meter run with a time of 33:12.31 while Thomas Edwards placed third. Each team would take fourth in the 1,500, as Jordyn Bloode clocked a 5:22.71 for the women and Cameron Fischer a 4:13.87 for the men. For the fifth time this year, Cody Canegan won the 400, setting a new personal best with a time of 50.40 seconds.

Freshmen Kerrigan Ballard and Michael Barber placed for each Carthage team in the 800 meter run, as they took sixth and fifth, respectively. In the women's 400-meter hurdles, freshman Grace Robinson took first place with a time of 1:09.71, while in the men's race, Justin Mbarushimana took second with a time of 1:01.91.

"Our long sprinters once again had a great day and we saw some nice improvements in the horizontal jumps," said Henry. "In the distance events we saw really nice races from Peyton, Walker, and Ben in the 5K, as well as Thomas Olenek and Thomas Edwards in the 10K."

Sarah Kerfin would place second in her heat, and overall, in the women's 200-meter dash with a time of 27.30 to score for the Firebirds, as Amy Mayhill added team points in the 5K with a fifth-place finish. Carthage's day on the track would end with the 4x400-meter relay, as the women placed fourth and the men in third.

In team scoring, the men placed second among the nine-team field with a total of 136 points, while the women placed third of 10 with 125 points.

Each team will be in action again on April 10 at the Carroll Pioneer Invitational.

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