The past three weeks have flown by and we are currently in Rochester, NY for the NCAA Division III National Championships. We won the MIAC outdoor championship by 40 points over St. Olaf. We qualified 57 athletes for the championship and had the potential to score in every event. We fell just short of that goal, but made up for it by scoring three athletes in several events such as the javelin, hammer throw, and 800m run. We are proud of the depth and hard work of all our athletes this season.
We had little time for celebration as we split the team for the last chance meets. The 4x100m relay team headed to Augustana College in Rock Island, IL and everyone else to La Crosse, WI. We had some good performances and personal records, but no “last chance” magic to qualify additional athletes to the National Championships.
Still, we had some outstanding performances throughout the year with three athletes qualifying for Nationals in four events. Kevin Arthur (JR, Champlin Park) will run both the 100 and 200 meter dashes. He set MIAC Championship records in the 100m (10.46 sec) and 200m (21.20 sec); and helped the 4x100m relay to a Championship record (41.11 sec). He also set the All-Time MIAC record in the 200m (21.15 sec) earlier in the season. Carter Grove (JR, Osakis) will be competing in the steeplechase after he dropped twenty seconds from his personal record to run 8:59.39. He finished second in the MIAC and is now #2 All-Time at SJU. Brett Hague (SR, Brainerd) will compete again in the javelin. This season, he set the school record, the MIAC Championship record, and the MIAC All-Time record.
Speaking of Brett, we had an interesting situation at the airport this week on our way to Rochester, NY for Nationals. Three of our guys were stopped at airport security to have their carry-on bags inspected. Coach Joe had his extra large sunscreen confiscated. Carter had his distance spikes inspected and Brett had multiple issues. His javelin spikes and the metal stake he uses to mark his approach were pulled out of his bag. Then the security officer pulled out a mason jar of sand. How do you explain that this is a jar of your “lucky” sand and your performance at Championships depends on it taking the flight unharmed? After testing the sand with various substances, the kind security officer let it through, possibly more amused that this mustachioed youngster had a jar of lucky sand.
Here is when the guys compete:
Thursday:
3:00 pm: Javelin
6:05 pm: 200 prelims
6:35 pm: Steeple prelims
Friday:
5:00 pm: 100 prelims
Saturday:
11:30 am: Steeple finals
1:30 pm: 100 finals
2:40 pm: 200 finals
How to follow along:
Elijah Wade will be tagging along to provide some coverage of the meet:
Watch live:
Follow the live results:
If you are in the Rochester, NY area, stop by and cheer the guys on!