Sophomore Joey Zielinski has been named IUPUI's Male Athlete of the Month for January 2015. The South Bend, Ind.-native was electric for the Jaguars in his three entries, including setting a new school record in the mile and helping the 4x800 team to another school record to close the month.
Zielinski opened the month with a fifth-place effort in the 3,000m event at the Gene Edmonds Cup (Jan. 10), running a season-best time of 8:39.36, missing his personal best by just three seconds.
However, it was the mile where Zielinski made his mark during the season's opening month.
At the IPFW Duals, he cruised to a mile win by setting a then school record time of 4:16.79, later earning Summit League Athlete of the Week honors. At the time, his posting was fastest in the league this season.
A week later, he shed nearly two more seconds off his school record time, running 4:14.95 on the opening night of the IU Relays (Jan. 30), placing 21st against elite competition. He capped an impressive double by helping IUPUI's 4x800 relay team to a school record time of 7:44.01 the following day (Jan. 31).
