One week after freshman Kyra Koontz shattered a program record in the 60-meter dash, freshman Wilma Nielsen, the reigning Women’s Missouri Valley Conference Track Athlete of the Week, put out a record-breaking performance of her own at the Sycamore Team Challenge last weekend.
Nielsen posted a time of 2 minutes, 9.03 seconds in the 800-meter dash, edging the previous record of 2:09.61 set by Mary Goldkamps in 2011.
“I felt good; my shape is pretty good right now, so I was thinking that [breaking the record] would be possible to do,” Nielsen said.
The Braves would round out the top three places in the 800 as Nielsen’s sister Julia Nielsen, also a freshman, recorded a time of 2:10.31 for second and redshirt freshman Tianna LoStracco clocked a time of 2:13.12 for third.
Redshirt junior Aisling Joyce added another first-place finish for the Braves this weekend as she edged out her teammate, redshirt sophomore Amelia Lesher, in the mile run. Joyce finished with a time of 5:12.69 while Lesher finished close behind in second with a time of 5:13.03.
Other top performances on the women’s side included redshirt freshman Sophia McDonnell finishing third in the 3000-meter run, the relay team of Reina McMillan, Lara Gebel, Koontz and T’Ya Suber placing third in the 4×400-meter relay, and the relay team of Olivia Harp, LoStracco, Lesher and Olivia Hobbs taking second in the distance medley.
Overall, the women earned 74 points, which proved good enough for third place out of five at the indoor competition.
Additionally, the men’s side showed some competitiveness with a couple of individual performances.
Freshman Aiden Donohue had a stellar day for the Braves, finishing fourth in the 800-meter dash with a time of 1:57.98 and helping his teammates finish second in the distance medley clocking a time of 10:54.62.
Perhaps the best performance of the day came from junior Charlie Parrish. Parrish finished second in the 3000-meter run, posting a time of 8:29.17, more than 11 seconds faster than his previous record of 8:40.3 set last season.
“I think it’s just about trusting the process,” Parrish said. “Year one of the system never really goes too well, and just being in the system this second year, I think it’s about just trusting it’ll get me to where I need to be.”
Despite some good individual performances, the men placed last in Terre Haute against a competitive field of teams, scoring 32 points in the meet.
Bradley head coach Darren Gausen is certainly pleased with these hot starts, especially in a season where indoor track and cross country are being run simultaneously.
“It was one of our goals as a staff this season to break a school record every weekend, so we’re on course already,” Gausen said. “I’m fully expecting us to improve here and continue to develop as the season continues.”
The Braves will switch to cross country this weekend before they return to Indiana for the Indiana State Invitational next Saturday.
