Six Carroll U Throwers To Compete At NCAA Division III Championships

WAUKESHA, WI —Carroll University senior Steven Hermsen will be looking to defend his 2021 national championship in the discus at this weekend's NCAA Division III Outdoor Track and Field Championships.

Hermsen will be one of six Pioneers throwers competing at the event, which takes place Thursday through Saturday at The SPIRE Institute in Geneva, Ohio.

A native of DePere, Hermsen enters this weekend's competition with the nation's longest discus throw this season: the 58.60-meter mark he recorded at the CCIW Track and Field Championships on May 7-8. The throw also was the eighth-longest in Division III men's history and it broke his own Carroll record.

Hermsen, who also earned all-conference honors in shot put and hammer throw, was named the CCIW Field Athlete of the Meet for a second straight year.

Junior Jimmy Hinkley, from Grayslake, Illinois, heads to his first NCAA national meet after finishing the regular season ranked 15th in the nation in hammer throw, with a long throw of 56.37 meters.

On the women's side, graduate student Emily Uitenbroek returns to the national meet to defend her 2021 title in the hammer throw.

The native of Kaukauna enters the meet as the fourth-ranked thrower in the nation with a season-high 57.97-meter throw, which she recorded at the UW-La Crosse Final Qualifier on Friday night.

Uitenbroek also repeated as the 2022 CCIW hammer throw champion earlier this month.

Meanwhile, senior Jamie Pankratz will make her first appearance at the national meet this weekend. The Fond Du Lac native was an All-American at the 2022 Division III Indoor Track and Field National Championship in March and she enters outdoor nationals ranked No. 15 in hammer throw.

Pankratz's season-best throw is 52.86 meters, which came at the CCIW Outdoor Championships.

Carroll junior Cate Gudaitis, from Arlington Heights, Illinois, punched her ticket to nationals at Friday's UW-La Crosse Final Qualifier, when she threw a personal record 44.44 meters in the discus, which is the 12th longest throw in the nation this season.

Sophomore Vanessa Uitenbroek, was the only Pioneer athlete to qualify in two events: the discus and shot put.

In the discus, Uitenbroek enters nationals as the No. 2 ranked thrower in the nation with a long throw of 48.93 meters. In the shot put, Uitenbroek's best throw of 14.00 meters, which came in the Division I Illini Meet in April, is the 13th-best throw in Division III this season.

Uitenbroek, a Kaukauna native, won the discus and shot put at the 2022 CCIW Outdoor Championships earlier this month.