YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Austin Wallace recorded a new school record in the long jump as the Milwaukee men's track and field opened the 2022 Horizon League Championships Saturday at Youngstown State.
 
After five events, the Panthers sit in second place with 49 points trailing Youngstown State.
 
Wallace shattered his previous school record in the long jump with a leap of 7.81m to finish first on Saturday. The mark would put the redshirt junior inside the top 20 in the country this season. Wallace initially broke the record during his heptathlon with a jump of 7.73m before breaking the record later in the day.
 
After the first four events in the heptathlon, Wallace currently holds the top spot with 3302 points. He has placed first in each event thus far and is nearly 600 points ahead of the next closest competitor. Tony Bretall ranks third in the pentathlon after a pair of third-place finishes in the shot put and high jump.
 
"Our men's heptathletes are setting themselves up to finish well tomorrow," head coach Andrew Basler said. "Wallace had a great first day and broke the school record in the heptathlon long jump. He's setting himself up to hopefully hit a mark that would get him to indoor nationals. He rebroke the school record a couple hours later in the long jump and is sitting 17th in the nation."
 
Obi Iwuagwu also scored for Milwaukee in the long jump, finishing fifth at 7.32m and posting a new lifetime best.
 
In the pole vault, the trio of Dylan Sieloff, Jack Browne, and Evan Bartelsen each posted a mark of 4.60m to finish second, third, and fourth, respectively.
 
Caleb Rogalski and Gracien Jules finished back-to-back in the weight throw, with Rogalski finishing third with a toss of 18.05m. Jules placed fourth, throwing to 17.14m.
 
The Panther 60m hurdle crew will send four to the finals tomorrow led by Sam Conger, who finished first with a time of 7.99 seconds. Wallace crossed the line in third at 8.16 seconds while Dane Nelson was fourth at 8.25 seconds. Joseph Salamone placed seventh at 8.32 seconds to give MKE a strong presence in the event.
 
Michael Gorman and Golden Cotton each advanced to the Sunday finals in the 60m and 200m following solid prelims. Gorman finished fifth in the 60m at 6.90 seconds and fifth in the 200m at 21.89 seconds while Cotton was seventh in the 60m (6.93 seconds) and second in the 200m (21.75 seconds). Both recorded new lifetime bests in the 200m.
 
Others to advance to the finals were Caleb Henry and Caleb Anderson in the 400m and Hunter Krepline in the 800m.
 
Milwaukee's distance medley relay team of Aidan Sodemann, Luke Rapisarda, Jack Fitzgerald, and Corey Thornton placed fifth at 10:35.93.
 
The second day of the championships begin tomorrow at 8 a.m. with the remaining events in the men's heptathlon. It will be followed by high jump, triple jump, shot put and one mile run before starting the finals of the running events at 12:30 p.m. 
 
"We're going to give it our all tomorrow," Basler said. "I think we've got just as good of a chance to make a run for a championship."