Rachel Loth

Pentathlon, Discus Action Shines for North Dakota Track and Field

1/30/2026 10:05:00 PM | By: Sydney Smith, FightingHawks.com

GRAND FORKS, N.D. – The home-opening track meet inside the Frederick D. Pollard Jr. Athletic Center started in shimmering fashion for North Dakota on Friday evening as day one of the UND Open kicked off for the Fighting Hawks.

Big headlines came out of the women's pentathlon that saw strong performances from all competing Hawks, who combined to individually win each of the five events.

Marta Marksa took the top spot over in the multis, collecting 3867 total points on the day. The score marks a new career high for the sophomore and places her fourth on the all-time UND Top-10 list. In her second-ever pentathlon, Marksa won the 60-meter hurdles with a season-best time of 8.61, won the high jump with a PR of 5-3 (1.60m), tallied a PR of 35-0 1/2 (10.68m) in the shot put, won the long jump and won the 800-meter run with a PR time of 2:19.56.

The runner-up title went to UND's own Kajsa Cabanas Andersson after she totaled 3383 points on the day. She collected a PR of 9.24 in the 60-meter hurdles for a second-place finish before winning the shot put (44-4, 13.51m) and clocking a PR of 2:35.13 in the 800-meter run.

Rounding out the pentathlon finishers for North Dakota was Finley Davignon, who took seventh overall with her 2279 points.

Success continued for the Fighting Hawks on the other side of the action in the men's and women's discus throw.

Ilaria Villa threw a monster 160-2 (48.83m) to take the top spot as Haidyn Skeen followed suit with a runner-up throw of 136-0 (41.47m) and Chloe Wolff finished seventh with a mark 128-10 (39.27m). Over on the men's side of competition, Ethan Thomas represented the Fighting Hawks in the finals with his mark of 156-00 (47.56m) that gave him a sixth-place overall finish.

North Dakota track and field will continue home action with day two of the UND Open, with multi events set to resume at 9 a.m.

Post-Meet Notes