ST. JOSEPH, Minn. – A pair of athletes from the College of Saint Benedict track and field team made the trek north Friday afternoon to compete against Division I, II and III athletes at the Bison Open in Fargo. Both senior Stephanie Pickthorn and first year Justus Floren had impressive performances against the tough competition, and came away with career-best marks.
Floren and Pickthorn combined for seven personal-best times or marks Friday, including two pentathlon scores that rank in the top 10 in CSB track and field history. For their impressive performance in the first multi event of the season, they are this week’s CSB Athletes of the Week.
The best finish of the day for the Bennie athletes came in the high jump where Floren took seventh with a personal-best mark of 1.53 meters. That marked an improvement of three centimeters from earlier in the season. Pickthorn recorded a pair of 10
th-place finishes in the shot put and the 60 hurdles as she recorded career-bests in both. She finished the hurdles in 9.65 seconds – a career-best by nearly one-tenth of a second – and finished with a throw of 9.76 meters in the shot, a 32-centimeter PR.
Pickthorn also recorded a PR in the high jump with her mark of 1.47 meters, four centimeters better than her personal-best of 1.43 set in 2020. She just missed a personal-best in the long jump as she recorded a leap of 4.95 meters, and finished the 800 in 2:43.21 in her first time running the race since 2020.
Floren recorded career-bests in the 60 hurdles, finishing in 9.81 seconds – her first time breaking 10 seconds – and the shot put with a mark of 9.59 meters. She just missed a PR in the long jump with her leap of 4.83 meters, and finished the 800 in 2:52.32 in her first time competing in the event.
At the end of the day, Pickthorn finished eighth out of 26 athletes with 2,944 points and Floren took 11
th with 2,860. Pickthorn’s score moved her into eighth in CSB history and Floren moved up into ninth.
The duo, along with their teammates, are back at home this Saturday, Feb. 12, when the team hosts Concordia and Minnesota-Morris at the CSB/SJU Quad. Events start at 11 a.m. at the McNeely Spectrum on the SJU campus. Fans must be masked at all times.
