SUPERIOR, Wis. -- The UW-Superior men's track and field team used victories in four individual events and two relays on the first day of the 2023 Upper Midwest Athletic Conference indoor championship Friday at Dr. Lydia C. Thering Fieldhouse to take a commanding 67.5-point lead.
 
Sophomore Michael Butterfield (Bovey, Minn./Greenway) won the mile and 5,000-meter runs in 4:30.75 and 16:26.38, respectively, to pace the Yellowjackets. Classmate Iain Matheson (Superior, Wis./Superior Senior) won the 400-meter dash in 51.61 seconds and senior Nate Ohman (Lake Nebagamon, Wis./Northwestern) claimed the weight throw with a mark of 15.52 meters. 
 
UWS also won both relays contested on the first day of competition -- the 4x200 and distance medley relay -- as it tallied 121.5 points on the day to lead second-place Minnesota Morris. Martin Luther (44 points) sits third overall.
 
Steven Pearson (Superior, Wis./Superior Senior), Ethan Bowe (Chetek, Wis./Chetek-Weyerhaeuser), Matheson and Ethan Westimayer (Laona, Wis./Laona) won the 4x200 in 1:34.24, while Aidan Doherty (Wild Rose, Wis./Wild Rose), Jordan Goldfine (Superior, Wis./Superior Senior) Butterfield and Zach Reese (Zimmerman, Minn./Spectrum) teamed up to win the DMR in 11:24.87.
 
Westimayer finished second in the 400-meter dash in 52.21 while Schorr was fifth in 53.20. 
 
Reese and Doherty completed a 1-2-3 finish for UWS in the mile in 4:35.07 and 4:35.78, respectively.
 
Kei Okamoto (Nagoya, Japan/Reitaku Mizunami) (sixth) and Kieran Johnson (South Range, Wis./Northwestern) (seventh) also scored in the 5,000 in times of 16:55.43 and 17:10.03.
 
Earl Foster (Forest Lake, Minn./Spectrum) placed second in the high jump with a mark of 1.82 meters while Garrett Lynch (Portage, Wis./Portage) tied for the third in the event with the same mark.
 
Pearson finished third in the long jump at 6.06 meters. Goldfine and Lynch also scored in seventh and eighth at 6.01 and 5.87 meters, respectively.
 
Day two of the meet begins at 10:30 a.m., on Saturday.