There is much to write about at the end of the season and not enough time to sit down and write. Hopefully I’ll write more about the conference championship meet after the season. Just know that it went extremely well! The team performed beyond expectation and despite having a few key runners injured, the team was still able to come away with a big win.
This has been an extremely difficult year to qualify for Nationals. Many students are staying in college for a fifth year to use their eligibility from the Covid year. This year, Coach Joe and I optimistically rented a house after last year’s success at the National Championships in North Carolina where we had seven guys earn All-American honors. We were cutting it close and only had two athletes qualified after the MIAC Conference Championship meet: Maguire Petersen (Hutchinson, SR) in the high jump and decathlon and Brett Hague (Brainerd, JR) in the javelin. It was going to be a quiet week in the house if we didn’t qualify anyone else. Several of our guys were close to qualifying but needed good weather and favorable winds at the last chance meet.
The annual last chance meet at LaCrosse had smaller fields this year as many teams opted for Augustana College in Illinois. I regretted the decision to stick with LaCrosse as it stormed for most of the drive. After a brief lightning delay, we had some good times in the 100 but not fast enough to qualify. The 4x100 ran for the first time with Ryan Miller on the anchor leg and broke the school record with a time of 40.65. Good enough to qualify for Nationals. The sprinters came back in the 100 finals with Kevin Arthur running 10.43 to qualify for Nationals as well. Ryan Miller just missed with a 10.51 (10.64-10.67 is the usual cut off for qualifying). The storm rolled in and we moved inside to watch the vaulters. They had an outstanding meet with Shawn Schindler qualifying for Nationals with a vault of 4.86 meters.
Below is the schedule of when the guys compete this week and links for the live results and video. It will be a fun week!
Jeremy
Competition Schedule: central time
Thursday: ~10:30: Decathlon 100: Maguire Petersen
~11:15: Decathlon Long Jump
~12:25: Decathlon Shot Put
~1:45: Decathlon High Jump
~3:40: Decathlon 400
~4:25: 4x100 prelims
~4:45: Javelin: Brett Hague
Friday: ~9:00: Decathlon 110 Hurdles
~9:45: Decathlon Discus
~11:00: Decathlon Pole Vault
~1:00: High Jump: Maguire Petersen
~1:45: Decathlon Javelin
~2:45: 100 meter Prelims: Kevin Arthur
~3:30: Decathlon 1500
Saturday: ~11:00: Pole Vault: Shawn Schindler
~11:15: 4x100 Finals
~1:40: 100 Meter Finals
How to follow along: