University of Minnesota Athletics
Three Gophers Named All-Americans
6/13/2017 12:00:00 AM | Men's Track & Field
Gophers All-American History
MINNEAPOLIS (GopherSports.com) - Luca Wieland, Nate Roese and Obsa Ali of the University of Minnesota men's track & field program were officially recognized as All-Americans on Monday following their performances at the 2017 NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships.
Wieland was named a First Team All-American while Roese and Ali represented the Gophers as Second Team All-Americans.
A native of Saarbrucken, Germany, Wieland picked up his third career First Team All-America accolade and his first in the decathlon with a third-place finish. His final score of 8,146 is the second highest point total in University of Minnesota history behind his own school record of 8,201 from earlier this year. Wieland's collegiate career was highlighted by an NCAA heptathlon title in 2015 while he was honored as the 2017 Big Ten Medal of Honor recipient. In addition to his First Team All-America nod this year in the decathlon, he also earned the honor twice in the heptathlon (2015, 2016). Additionally, Wieland earned four Big Ten titles, winning the 2017 outdoor high jump, the 2015 heptathlon and back-to-back decathlons in 2015 and 2016. As a senior, Wieland set three school records - the decathlon (8,201 points), the heptathlon (6,070 points) and the outdoor 4x100 meter relay (39.80).
A native of Woodbury, Minn., Roese also closed out his collegiate career last weekend with a 14th-place finish in the 800 meters. The senior earned his second career Second Team All-America honor after picking up the honor last year as part of Minnesota's outdoor 4x400 meter relay team. Roese, who set the school indoor 600 meter record earlier this year at 1:15.55, moved up to seventh in school history in the outdoor 800 meters with his time of 1:47.61 at the national championships.
A native of Richfield, Minn., Ali earned his first career All-America nod in his NCAA championships debut last week. The redshirt sophomore ran 8:49.00 to finish 14th in the 3,000 meter steeplechase. Ali put up a trio of top-10 all-time performances for the Gophers earlier in 2017, ranking second in the indoor 5,000 meters (13:57.43), seventh in the outdoor 3,000 meter steeplechase (8:45.55) and seventh in the outdoor 5,000 meters (13:53.80). He also ran the eighth fastest indoor 3,000 meters in program history (8:07.02) as a redshirt freshman in 2016.
###
Players Mentioned
