Five qualifiers for the national championship! No other team in the MIAC is taking that many individual athletes to this national meet. These 5 athletes will be participating in 4 different events and are supervised by 3 different coaches. This highlights the well-rounded team in which SJU has always strived.
Last week, a few athletes spent spring break practicing and making the long drive to Wartburg College for a last chance meet. Anyone who has made those drives in a tight van likely has fond memories of it. Those trips are often filled with random conversations and lots of laughs. Somehow we started discussing state facts like official bird, tree, drink, muffin, soil, etc. We easily burned an hour of the drive quizzing each other on most of the states in the union.
Here’s a quick snapshot of other topics from this weekend’s drive:
The quality of a grandma’s pickles
Origins of the phrase “busting my chops”
Portly kids playing trombones
Skiing in the French Alps
Harry Potter vs. Star Wars (don’t start this one around Coach Joe)
Best quote: “My grandma is the Jeff Bezos of Kohl’s cash”
(Being that grandmothers are brought up twice on this list should warm hearts knowing that college males think so frequently about their grandparents.)
As for the meet, Collin Trout (SR, Cloquet) saved his big performance for when he needed it most. Many of his competitors at this meet were either on the bubble of qualifying or slightly ahead of him in the national rankings. Collin came through with a new personal record of 14.52 meters (47ft-7in). Of course, he bumped his own teammate, Michael Wallace (SO, Bahamas) Wee, out of the top-20. It looked like Michael wouldn’t qualify. We had to wait for the official announcement on Sunday night to learn that two athletes above Michael Wallace are not competing and he gets a trip to nationals after all. As for other last chance meet highlights, Drew Dockendorf (JR, Holdingford) set another personal record/school record (5.03m, 16ft-6in). Not a bad way to head into the national meet.
I spent most of the day yesterday figuring out how to transport pole vault poles to North Carolina. Many schools send one lone coach in a van just to get the poles to the meet and we were trying to avoid that expedition to North Carolina. All major shipping companies won’t take anything over 8 feet long and there’s only one airline that will take them. After jumping a lot of hoops, Southwest Freight will be getting Drew’s poles to the Home of the Wright Brothers by Thursday afternoon.
The team departs on Wednesday and flies into Charlotte, North Carolina. We will practice at the JDL Fastrack on Thursday in Winston-Salem and be there through the weekend. Here’s the schedule:
Friday: All Times Eastern Time
11:00am: Drew Dockendorf, Pole Vault
3:50pm: Ryan Miller, 60 meter dash
Saturday:
11:00am: Maguire Petersen, High Jump
2:00pm: Collin Trout, Michael Wallace, Triple Jump