FREMONT, Neb. — Dakota Wesleyan Track & Field traveled south to the campus of Midland University to compete in the 2026 Great Plains Athletic Conference Outdoor Championships.
The men's team found a decent amount of success across the board, with three athletes placing in the top eight in their events to earn All-Conference distinction from the GPAC. Quenton Walls would take home the highest placement of any Dakota Wesleyan athlete with a second-place finish in the triple jump, hitting a 13.74m mark in finals to move up on the leaderboard. Maxwell Raab placed sixth in the javelin throw with his best heave coming on his sixth and final attempt, recording a 51.37m, and Talan Heezen rounded out the podium-level efforts for the men's team with a 4.10m in the pole vault, just able to tie for eighth place and earn GPAC accolades as a true freshman. Tayne Herrmann represented DWU across three events, placing 14th in the 110m hurdles, 16th in the 400m hurdles, and 13th in the javelin with a top throw of 45.76m. Dustin Lemaster recorded a top-10 finish in the 400m with a 49.87 and contributed in the 4x100m relay alongside Trevor Sladky, Quincy Stephens, and Sean DeBlieck, to post a ninth-place finish at 43.56 seconds. Sladky would post a 6.40m leap in the long jump to place in the top 10, and DeBlieck competed in the triple jump, posting a 12.04m on his second attempt. As a group, the men's team recorded 11.5 total points to finish ninth on the team leaderboard.
For the women's side of the roster, Dani Deffenbaugh would lead the way as the lone All-Conference athlete, earning honors in two events. She would place eighth in the heptathlon, placing second in the javelin and fifth in both the 200m and 800m portions of the contest to amass 3899 points, along with an eighth-place finish in the javelin (detached from the heptathlon) with her best attempt coming on the third throw at a mark of 35.92m. Riley Jones joined Deffenbaugh in the heptathlon, recording a top-10 finish with her best performance coming in the high jump portion with a second-place mark of 1.55m, and recorded top-15 finishes in the women's high jump and long jump. Deffenbaugh and Jones joined Ella Pollreisz and Hailey Oswald in the 4x400m relay, placing 11th with a time of 4:12.78. Pollreisz also appeared in the 3000m steeplechase, placing 12th with a final time of 12:53.13, while Oswald posted a 1:07.35 in the 400m in her other event appearance. To round out the effort on the track, Stacy Ruelas-Hertz placed 11th in the 100m hurdles with a 15.45-second time. Taliyah Hayes would record a top-10 finish in the high jump with a 1.52m, along with a 10.56m mark in the triple jump. In the field events, Shirley Huckins capped off an excellent freshman year with a 12th-place finish in the discus and 14th-place finish in the shot put with a recorded 11.21m, and would be joined by Devin Hongslo, who threw 10.17m. Samantha Kludt rounded out DWU's efforts with a 28.09m mark in the javelin. The women's team placed 12th with two total points on the leaderboard.
DWU Track & Field will compete in the Loper Twilight next week before concluding the 2025-26 season. See the full schedule here.