I mentioned last week how we were all looking forward to heading out on the road for a meet. While it was good to be in the rhythm of traveling to a meet, I’m not sure it outweighs the lengthy day we had on Saturday.
Some of you will remember the NDSU meet a few years ago when they scrambled to find officials as the meet started. I remember most of the team trying to get out of the cold by sitting on the bus, eating pizza, and watching our triple jumpers who didn’t start until well after the running events were over.
That meet, coincidentally, fell on the same weekend. Saturday was truly a full day of work. We departed at 6:30am and made it back to Collegeville by 11:30pm. With over fifty men’s hammer throwers and the same amount of women, the meet was destined to take awhile. There was some grumbling by the runners as the running events also fell over one hour behind. Despite the schedule, we still had some good performances.
The big highlight of the meet was the return of Drew Dockendorf (JR, Holdingford). Drew has been out since the indoor season with a stress fracture. He was cleared by his doctor and our athletic trainer to vault two days each week. He is not allowed to run other than while vaulting and is only allowed to do short approach vaults. We have to be a little creative to accomplish some training and adjust his warmups. Despite the short approach, Drew cleared 4.70 (15-5) and entered the national rankings.
The distance guys missed all of the South Dakota fun and opted for a meet at Hamline with some strong competition. The main report from our expert coaching staff of Tim Miles and Maxwell Kuzara was their excitement about the low cost of pizzas after the meet. After checking the results, the big highlight was obviously Mitchell Grand’s (SO, Hutchinson) win in the 1500 with a time of 3:55.90
This week, we are at St. Thomas on Friday with a 3:30pm start time. We will have some tough competition through all events as Bethel, Augsburg, and St. Mary’s (with the #1 4x100 in the MIAC) will be there.
Hope to see you there!
JKG
Johnnies in the National Rankings
#6: Ryan Miller in the 100: 10.65
#8: Maguire Petersen in the high jump: 6-8.75
#9: Maguire Petersen in the Javelin: 192-5
#16: Maguire Petersen in the decathlon: 5965 points
#16: Drew Dockendorf in the pole vault: 15-5
#20: 4x100: 42.05
#21: Shawn Schindler in the pole vault: 15-3
#31: Michael Wallace in the triple jump: 45-11
#38: Mitchell Grand in the 1500: 3:55.90