Sunday, May 15, 2011

CEDAR FALLS, Iowa - Junior Jon DeGrave (Lake Villa, Ill.) repeated as Missouri Valley Conference champ in the 400-meter hurdles, while senior Brandon Lewis (Plymouth, Minn.) won the 800-meters at the State Farm MVC Outdoor Track And Field Championship on Sunday (May 15).

DeGrave became the first Drake athlete since Mark Dzradosi to win back-to-back Outdoor MVC titles. Degrave beat out Jonathan Jackson of Indiana State in the timed final crossing the line in 52.40.

"It honestly wasn't my best day," commented DeGrave. "I got the job done though so I was happy about that."

Lewis won the first ever 800-meter crown in Drake's history as he took the race in a photo finish. Lewis's time of 1:54.05 beat out both Stephen Arvanis of Southern Illinois and Thibault Vandenabeele of Northern Iowa, who finished with times of 1:54.10 and 1:54.11, respectively.            

"I just wanted to go out and run a great race," commented Lewis. "There were a lot of strong people in the race and I just figured I would be a little unconventional in my strategy and start off going for the win. I got the idea from teammate Matt Jurysta who told me to run the race like I wanted to win it."

Freshman Brogan Austin (Boone, Iowa) earned a fourth-place finish in the men's 5,000 clocking in at 14:53.85.

Junior Charlie Lapham (Golden Valley, Minn.) and freshman Omet Kak (Des Moines, Iowa) finished fifth and sixth in the 1500 clocking in at 3:53.84 and 3:54.23, respectively.

Freshman Alex Kaster (Omaha, Neb.) finished eighth in the triple jump as he soared 47 feet 7 inches.

Freshman Brett Wright (Longwood, Colo.) was sixth in the 400-meter dash finishing in 49.70.