April 23, 2007

CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA . . . The Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (IIAC) announced today that Loras College track and field performers Dana Klemm (Gurnee, Ill./Warren) and Kyle Calvert (Pekin, Ill./Pekin) have been named the IIAC Female and Male Athletes of the Week for the period ending Sunday, April 22. The Conference also announced the Performers of the Week for each of the Conference’s six sports in competition during the week.

Women’s Outdoor Track & Field – Dana Klemm, Loras College, Gurnee, Ill./Warren
Klemm, a senior, automatically qualified for the NCAA Championships in the shot put with her performance at the Dick Young Invitational. She won the event with a meet and school record mark of 48-feet 8-inches, currently the top mark in the nation by over three feet. She also won the hammer with a provisional qualifying mark of 165-feet 4-inches, and placed eighth in the discus (129-feet 3-inches).

Men’s Outdoor Track & Field – Kyle Calvert, Loras College, Pekin, Ill./Pekin
Calvert, a sophomore, automatically qualified for the NCAA Championships in the pole vault with his performance at the Dick Young Invitational. He shattered both the meet and school records with a vault of 17-feet one-quarter inch, currently the top mark in the nation. The previous meet record was 15-feet 11-inches and the previous school record was 15-feet 3-inches.

Baseball – Kyle Schroeder, Luther College, Sparta, Wis./Bangor
Schroeder, a senior catcher, hit .533 (8-for-15) with two home runs, a double, 11 RBI and five runs scored in four games during the week. He began the week with a 4-for-5 performance, two home run performance in a 10-3 win over Dubuque in which he drove in five runs and scored three times. In Luther’s 15-5 win over Simpson in the single game of the three-game series, Schroeder was 3-for-5 with a double, four RBI and a run scored. After being held hitless in three at-bats in the opener of the Simpson doubleheader (a 7-4 Luther win), he went 1-for-2 with two RBI and a run scored in the nightcap, leading the Norse to an 8-5 win.

Men’s Golf – Andy Petersen, Central College, Davenport, Iowa/West
Petersen, a sophomore, holds a five stroke lead through 36-holes of the 72-hole Iowa Conference Championship with a 1-under-par 143. He has recorded the top score in each of the first two rounds including a second-round 70, one of two sub-par rounds during the first half of the Tournament.

Softball – Sara Blaser, Cornell College, Davenport, Iowa/North
Blaser, a sophomore third baseman, returned to the line-up after missing a week to hit .611 (11-for-18) with four home runs, a double and 16 RBI. In Cornell’s 6-2 win over Dubuque, she had a pinch-hit grand slam in the third inning that included the game winning runs. She went 1-for-3 with a home run and two RBI in the nightcap, a 6-5 Cornell loss. Blaser went 1-for-3 with a three-run home run in the Rams’ 4-2 win over Mount Mercy in the opener of a doubleheader, then had two hits in three at-bats with a double and an RBI in the a 3-2 loss to Mount Mercy. She hit her second grand slam of the week as part of a 3-for-4, 5-RBI performance in Cornell’s 14-8 win over Beloit before finishing the week with another 3-for-4 outing in a 5-2 win over Beloit.

Men’s Tennis – Ryan Yao, Coe College, Naperville, Ill./Neuqua Valley
Yao, a senior, won both of his singles matches during the week, including a 6-1, 6-4 victory over the eighth-ranked player in the region, Alec Kempster from Kalamazoo College, ranked 18th nationally. He also defeated Calvin’s Ricky Tilton (6-4, 6-3).

Other Outstanding Weekly Performers
The IIAC also recognized the following outstanding athletic performances from the past week.

• Coe College sophomore pitcher Ellie Schultz (Clayton, Iowa/Clayton Ridge) went 4-0 during the week with 0.27 ERA and 17 strikeouts in 26 innings, allowing just eight hits. She had three shutouts in four games including her second no-hitter in as many weeks, an 8-0 five-inning win over Buena Vista.

• Wartburg College sophomore designated player Ashlie Imming (Fort Dodge, Iowa/Fort Dodge) went 3-for-5 with six RBI in two games during the week. All three of her hits were home runs, giving her a 2.400 slugging percentage.

• Luther College senior Emily Pankow (Palatine, Ill./Palatine) provisionally qualified for the NCAA Championships with her win in the heptathlon at the Augustana (Ill.) Invitational. She posted a point total of 4535, just 25 points shy of the automatic qualifying score.

• Wartburg College senior Heidi Porter (Manson, Iowa/Manson-NW Webster) automatically qualified for the NCAA Championships with a school record time of 2:10.82 in the 800-meter run to win the event at UW-LaCrosse’s Phil Esten Challenge. She won by nearly seven seconds with the fastest time in the nation to date.

• University of Dubuque junior Orlando Walton (Muskegon, Mich./Muskegon) automatically qualified for the NCAA Championships with a school record time of 10.45 seconds in the 100-meter dash to win the event at UW-LaCrosse’s Phil Esten Challenge. He was also ran anchor on the winning 4x100 relay team that posted a provisional qualifying time of 41.73 seconds.

-30-