CEDAR FALLS, IOWA - Junior Jon DeGrave (Lake Villa, Ill.) took home the 400-meter State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Indoor Track And Field Championship title in decisive fashion on Sunday (Feb. 27).

DeGrave won the race in 48.57, which was almost four-tenths of a second faster than the second-place finisher Josh Madsen of UNI.  DeGrave also became the first Drake MVC Indoor 400-Meter Champion.

"Jon is just so strong," commented head coach Natasha Brown. "There were two critical times when he made strategic moves and when he did them he was strong and powerful. He came out of the final turn tall and powered his way home."

DeGrave finished second in the 200-meter dash clocking in at 21.97.

"His 200 was a little more impressive as he is a 400-meter hurdler and the 200 is a somewhat new thing for him," said Brown.

Sophomore Dan Karys (Bartlett, Ill.) placed fourth in the triple jump with a leap of 48 feet 5.50 feet, a personal best.

"Karys has been jumping well," said Brown. "I think his break from jumping really helped his performance today."

Junior Charlie Lapham (Golden Valley, Minn.) and Matt Jurysta (Oshawa, Ontario) were fifth and sixth, respectively, in the 800-meter race. Lapham ran the four-lap circuit in 1:54.00, while Jurysta crossed the line in 1:54.99.

"We had hoped for a higher finish," said Brown. "But at the conference meet when you have a prelim it is hard to run a personal best in the finals the next day."

Freshman Omet Kak (Des Moines, Iowa) was fourth in the mile clocking in at 4:14.15. Fellow freshman Brogan Austin (Boone, Iowa) was seventh crossing the finish line in 4:16.13. Austin also ran a time of 15:06.35 to finish 11th in the 5,000 meter race.

"I really like where they are with their confidence and attitude going into the outdoor season," said Brown. "We have a very young team and they had a lot of good experiences that will help them in the outdoor season. I am looking forward for some of our athletes returning to their normal events."