Alum Tommy Schmitz breaks 4:00 Mile

Marquette track and field / cross country alum Tommy Schmitz broke the 4:00 mile barrier this weekend at a meet at the University of California.

Find a link to the GoMarquette.com story here.

Here is a video of the race from RunnerSpace.com. Tommy is in and out of the picture throughout much of the race, starting toward the back and running much of the race in the 3rd or 4th position. There are also several rabbits that dropout throughout.



Watch the post-race interview from FloTrack.com here.

Marquette Twilight

Despite pretty nasty weather conditions we were able to complete this year’s edition of the Marquette Twilight. For those of you out there helping out, thanks so much! The weather really affected the performances on the track and in the field events. That said, the throwers were able to find a few successes as Rachel Thiel finally recorded her BIG EAST qualifying mark in the shot put after a long road back from knee surgery. Generally speaking this was not a competition to write home about in terms of times and marks. It was a competition to write home about in terms of effort. Everyone who competed Saturday really got after it. How we compete is key as we get ready for the BIG EAST Outdoor meet this upcoming weekend at Villanova.

Due to the weather we don’t have any pictures this week.

Find the GoMarquette.com story, copy of the MU Radio broadcast, and results here.

Find the Marquette Tribune story here.

Arkansas Wrap-Up

Last weekend we send half our team to the John McDonnell Invite at the University of Arkansas. The other half stayed in town and competed at the Wisconsin Lutheran Warrior Relays. You can check out the GoMarquette.com recap as well as find results here. At Arkansas, the team had to deal with a thunderstorm and a 45 min delay during the middle of the meet. We had several strong performances, but we are still looking for the big breakthrough from a number of areas. Time is running out as we only have one more meet before the BIG EAST meet on May 1-3.

Here are a few pictures from Arkansas…

Senior Nick Van Deraa tied his outdoor PR with a vault of 15-1. Nick also anchored the 4x400m relay to a season best time of 3:15.73 with a spilt of 48.8.

Junior Jayne Grabinski improved her PR in the Steeplechase to 10:34.15. That mark is #2 in school history behind All-American Brianna Dahm. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel did a nice piece on Jayne in the Thursday April 23 edition. Check it out here.

Junior Michael O'Brien continued his consistent season running 54.59 in the 400 Hurdles. Mike also split 48.5 running the 3rd leg of the 4x400 that ran a seasons best time of 3:15.75.

Sophomore Alyssa Davis jumped 38'9.75" in the triple jump. That is the second best jump of Alyssa's career.

Sophomore Tyler O'Brien ran a season's best 200m with a time of 21.73 in a downpour (the rain is the reason for a smaller number of pictures this week). The meet was suspended for about 45 minutes due to lightening shortly after Tyler's race. Tyler came back later in the meet to lead off the 4x400m relay with a split of 49.4 and help the team run a season best time of 3:15.75.

Marquette vs UWM Dual Meet

Hello everyone, I am sorry that my updates have been lacking lately. The past couple of weeks have been very busy and I have had to put off updating the blog.

Last Friday both our men's and women's teams came out victorious as we renewed a dual meet series with UW-Milwaukee that we hope to continue on an annual basis from here on out. Some years we may compete indoors at UWM and other years we will be outdoors at the Valley. We do not necessarily have a set pattern of when it will be indoors and when it will be outdoors, it will probably come down to where we can fit the meet in with our respective schedules.

Interestingly enough, after doing some digging through old files, it appears that the last dual meet HOSTED by Marquette was back in 1972 when UWM beat Marquette at Marquette Stadium. As far as I could tell by looking at the old files it may have been the last Marquette track meet held at Marquette Stadium. If any of you know anything different, please let me know!

To check out the GoMarquette.com recap and meet results click here.

To check out the photo gallery from the meet click here.


Here are a few videos from the meet...


Tyler O'Brien winning the Men's 100m... making him "Milwaukee's Fastest Man"




Olivia Johnson just edged out Katlin Millin to win the Women's 800m.




Nick Van Deraa took 2nd in the Pole Vault with a jump of 14'6". The pole vault took place in the Marquette Gym the due to the umpredicatable weather in the Valley. This was likely the first official track & field competition held in the Gym since the 1960s.




Alyssa Davis won the Triple jump with a jump of 36'9.75" (her first jump).




Mike O'Brien won the 400m Hurdles in a time of 54.82.




Erynn James won the high jump with a jump of 5'5". Erynn only took 2 jumps on the day. Everyone else was out of the competition when Erynn came in at 5'3". She made that height and proceeded to 5'5", deciding to stop after clearing the bar.




Shawn McLarney took 2nd in the Long Jump with a jump of 22'0.25"




Liz Wilkie took 2nd in the Pole Vault with a PR 11'6.25"




Eric Meissner won the Men's 800m; just holding off Peter Bolgert and UWM runner Jake Spaciel.




Lauren Darnall took 3rd in the Pole Vault with a PR jump of 11'0.25"