coach’s clipboard for 5/19/26
What’s been happening? How about heading to the NCAA Championships!
My last post about the season being chaotic has held true and left little time to keep you all updated. With the last blog about a month ago, we managed to squeeze in quite a few meets. And since I wasn’t busy enough, I decided to host a trail race through the arboretum with nearly 100 runners.
The coaches went to more meets than the athletes during this period as we needed to split the team a couple of times. The University of Minnesota hosts a great meet, but needs to limit entries with the lack of lights and facility space. That means I took athletes to the UofM on a Wednesday and the rest of the team to Gustavus on a Saturday. Add in a rough year with injuries and it felt like we were barely keeping things together.
The chaotic April led us to the MIAC Championships. Here are a few of the highlights:
Bailey Evans (SO, Breckenridge) won the decathlon with 6,592 points.
Cole Stencel (JR, Maple River) won both the 1500 and 5,000.
Cooper Smith (JR, East Grand Forks) won the 400 hurdles in 52.75.
Mitchell Degan (SR, Brainerd) won the javelin with a conference meet record throw of 216-1.
Overall, the team took third behind a well-balanced Bethel team and the St. Olaf distance runners. More importantly, we quickly recovered and had some success at the Last Chance Qualifier to lead us into the NCAA National Championships this week in La Crosse, WI. We qualified four athletes who happen to be the event winners from the MIAC Championships:
Bailey Evans competes in the decathlon on Thursday and Friday starting at 10am both days.
Cole Stencel competes in the 1500 on Thursday at 4:50pm. Hopefully finals on Saturday at 1:35. He broke the school record to qualify with a time of 3:47.29.
Cooper Smith runs the 400 hurdles on Thursday at 5:25pm with finals on Saturday at 3:25.
Mitchell Degan throws the javelin on Saturday at 11:00am.
Follow along here:
Or if you find yourselves in La Crosse this weekend, we’d love to see you!