We are posting a daily review of the top 10 sports stories of the 2010-11 school year in Augsburg College athletics, as determined by the sports information staff -- Sports Information Director Don Stoner and Assistant SIDs Kelly Anderson Diercks and Ryan Kershaw. Today's entry features the No. 5 listing in our countdown. Check back each weekday for a new entry in the top 10 list, and the No. 1 story will be revealed on Friday. Agree or disagree with the selections? Comment by sending an e-mail to Don Stoner at stoner@augsburg.edu.
During his tremendous career as a sprinter for the Augsburg College men's track and field team,
Nick Ward (SR, Coon Rapids, Minn.) accomplished nearly everything an athlete could accomplish, winning multiple Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference titles, earning numerous All-MIAC honors, breaking school records. But one accomplishment eluded him -- reaching the NCAA Division III national championships.
Ward earned that final accomplishment twice in his senior campaign, earning a trip to the national championships in both the indoor and outdoor season, cementing his legacy as one of the top sprinters in school history.
“We've been fortunate to have some very good sprinters at Augsburg. Nick is certainly among the best,” said Augsburg head coach Dennis Barker.
Ward had a career year in 2011, winning two individual conference championships while sharing another in a relay. He earned five All-MIAC honors and one All-MIAC honorable-mention honor during the 2011 season.
During the indoor season,
Ward dominated at the MIAC championships, leading all conference competitors with 27.8 total points, as part of Augsburg's seventh-place, 58-point finish.
He won the MIAC individual title in the 55-meter dash for the third year in a row, coming across in a school-record 6.42 seconds. He won the long jump conference title (6.86 meters/22-feet-6.25) for the second straight year. He also placed third in the 200-meter dash in 22.77 seconds, was part of a school-record 800-meter relay (1:30.89) that finished fourth, and was part of a seventh-place 1,600-meter relay squad (3:31.02).
Ward earned his first
NCAA Division III national championships berth in the indoor 55-meter dash. Competing at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, he fell one-thousandth of a second short of reaching the eight-person finals in the event, finishing in 6.448 seconds.
During the outdoor portion of the season, Ward continued his march to greatness, setting a school record in the 100-meter dash at the St. Thomas Tom Cat Open (10.73 seconds), while also being a part of a 1,600-meter sprint medley relay squad that placed fifth in the college division
at the prestigious Drake Relays.
At the MIAC outdoor championships, Ward made school history as the anchor leg of the conference champion 400-meter relay (42.17 seconds) -- the first Augsburg squad to win the conference title in the event. He also placed second in the 100-meter dash in 11.22 seconds, just two-hundredths of a second away from claiming the title for the third time.
Ward earned his second NCAA championships berth with a spot in the 100-meter dash.
At the national championships at Ohio Wesleyan University, he finished 20th in the preliminaries with an 11.07-second time.
“It was great to see Nick qualify for the NCAA championships both indoors and outdoors this year,” Barker said. “He had an unfortunate hamstring injury during outdoors, which prevented him from being in top form. But he was still able to score valuable points at the MIAC championships and make it to nationals.”
Ward finished a career that will rank him among the best sprinters ever to compete at Augsburg. He earned seven MIAC championships, 12 All-MIAC honors and eight All-MIAC honorable-mention honors. He earned MIAC Athlete of the Week honors (individual and relay) six times, and is a part of eight school records.
