MIAC Track Talk

Nothing will ever be better than that heat. Where are entries posted?

https://miac_ftp.sidearmsports.com/custompages/championships/trackfield/Indoor%202026/mens-entries.pdf

Kinda hilarious to see two athletes from the Oles national qualifying team running the slow heat of the 3K for that meet. And frequent Letsrun visitor Brodie!

Crazy to see that Kevin Turlington ran 8:53 as a freshman for 3K or that Bethel legend Grant Graber only finished 22nd that day. Why was Mo so far back?

Actual State of the Union-

We had fire marshals and dinner in the dark again, but Carleton ran a great meet.

A tale of two teams - Bethel relatively no distance besides Victor/Hootie and Oles only mid D and Turlington. The Johnnies seem to be taking Indoor more seriously than in the last, but we all know they’ll move up Outdoor. Not having all the extra mid D events will limit Ole points, but give the 800 coach a raise! The Ole crowd was loud, but that’s a lot of athletes not competing in the meet. It has been well documented that the Ole admin wants a more balanced team and a smaller roster, like the women, so the pressure will be on to perform better ourdoor.

Cobber women were not supposed to win this meet, but they outperformed their seedings in every event. The have so much young talent. Their DMR win was astounding. Their 800 runner is my MVP winner merely for running so many events at a high level.

Men’s Awards-

Track MVP - Nelson with his dominant weekend of four facility records. Stencel and his kick also deserve some recognition! We should really do sprints/hurdles and mid distance/distance awards.
Field MVP- Cooper of course. Too bad we didn’t see him battle Trent. Triple winning on the last jump and pole vault gave the Hamdaswgs something to cheer for too.
Coach of Year - Andrew Rock, but the Gusties had a really great meet too.
Freshman of the Year - a tie between Feig and Kent of Bethel.

Women-

Track MVP -Nygard or Roghan Press who both raced at such a high level.
Field MVP- Lauren Pearson. Also, the Freshman of the Year.
Coach of the Year- Definitely Marv.

So when’s the real state of the union coming out?

What a fun meet. We had a closer than expected men's meet and a surprising Cobber victory.

My MVP's-

Men

Sprints - Grant Nelson - what a weekend for him. Four victories. Four Facility records.

Mid D - Cole Stencel - two school records and a MIAC record.

Distance - Kevin Turlington. Cruised the 5K and set a facility record in the 3K. Looks like he'll be on the outside looking in for Nats.

Jumps - I'll go with the Hamline duo of Austin and Isaiah both clutching up late to win their event.

Throws - Cooper set a new MIAC, school, and Facility record and ranks second in the nation.

My MVP's-
Women

Sprints - Lots of really nice individual performances, but the 400 was absolutely the race of the weekend. I don't know that I have an individual pick, maybe Shalon Sulungaine.

Mid Distance - Isabell Wyatt had a nice 800m victory and was narrowly edged by one of the talented Carleton freshmen.

Distance - Molly Liston has put her name in the MIAC Goat contest despite not matching the pedigree of the Northfield stars.

Jumps - Lauren Pearson will be a name to follow the next four years. The Cobbers seem to manufacture multi stars from scratch every year. It wouldn't have been surprised to see her win the long jump too, but she was likely too tired to dominate that last event.

Throws - Tessa Myatt was the surprise shot winner after her multi and several running events, but we have to go with Speratos with an amazing series of throws in an outstanding battle with Brainer of Hamline.

Other thoughts -

The DMR didn't pan out to be as epic for the men, but the women's was very exciting. It was great to see Kubicek finally get some competition. The women's squads rode their studs with Hernes, Pearson, Nygard and Rogahn-Press doing countless events. Men's high jump didn't live up to the early season hype, but Nick Bovitz gaming in the long and triple was inspiring for the Bethel crowd. It was obvious Bethel really wanted to win and scoring close to 100 points on day two will always mean a victory. It was also obvious the Ole men really thought they could win. The contrast of demeanor of the the two Ole coaches was interesting. The women's coach seemed thrilled to place second, while Power looked like someone continually kicked him in the junk and then told him they ran over his puppy.

Who got up at 4:00 am to write this? Or maybe post MIAC party? Weird.

Congrats to Carleton on hosting a great meet in a tiny facility. It really does seem like we should only compete at Olaf or St. John's. What's with dinner in the dark every year?

I would like to shout out Kevin Turlington. 9:44 is fairly good for a senior in high school going D3 but I don’t think most expected him to improve so much year after year from there. Well done

He was barely under 17:00 in cross country too. The great Gathje family all went to his high school. Wonder if that's the same coach.

It’s not like he’s had much competition in the MIAC this year. Most years that doesn’t win the long events with his times.

Stencel’s improvement curve is probably the biggest having only run 4:26, but Dave already had his stud in waiting in Jacob Hopkins. Look at his one year improvement!

Other than their freshmen, the Ole 800 runners weren’t very fast in high school. We need to give more attention to their assistant for recruiting and developing them. Moore ran 1:58.7 and Nemecek 1:59.7. I’m much more impressed by this.

How did my shout out possibly put you on the defensive like that? lol. Your bum ahh think’s I’m scrutinizing other runners or teams by saying that? What a weirdo. For the record Stencel’s been impressive, it’s been great fun seeing him compete, and I bet he will do even better outdoor.

Let me say it in another way. Turlington’s 9:44 and 4:27 in HS does not usually translate to 14:11 indoor and 30:01 outdoor. That is the result of consistent work, dedication, and a GOOD COACH!

I think it's safe to say that Turlington is the first non-stud that Olaf has developed in the last few years. Kelly, Curtis, Bocovich, Skemp, etc. all were D1-level recruits that chose Olaf. Turlington likely wasn't good enough to run anywhere other than St. Thomas.

I think it says a lot that Bethel only needed 4 distance points to win by more than 20 points. I can see why the Ole admin would be disappointed the program hasn’t evolved. St. John’s lost Indoor, like most years, but they were top 5 in the country Outdoor last year. That seems like a much better balance to follow. Can’t figure out if it’s ego or laziness, but something has to change if the Oles want to be as good as some of their other sports. I like Power, but can understand why their admin would be frustrated with him.

Turlington wasn’t heavily recruited out of high school. Carleton was interested but that was about it.

This article reminded me that Reese Anderson was strong distance before trying to out Andrew Cogley, Andrew Cogley.

postbulletin.com

'I want to do my absolute best': Undefeated Turlington taking his game to new heights for Lourdes cross country

https://www.postbulletin.com/isaac-trotter

Kevin Turlington's mom, Marie Boyd, is a teriffic long-distance runner. That's where he believes his work ethic and mental toughness come from; those traits have been on full display this fall for the Rochester Lourdes junior...

Open link

Worth revisiting only because this imagery makes me laugh.

Pretty sure he was looking at other D3’s out of state.

What other current MIAC athletes have made a similar improvement - non distance only. Noah Kubicek and Trent Beseth top my list.

We really should break the Running MVP into two categories - Mid D/Distance & Sprints/Hurdles. Other conferences do this. But a sprinter/hurdler can earn way more points than most distance athletes. And yes Grant's performances were massive, why should we punish a Turlington for jogging the 5K. It's not his fault he didn't have to try. We've seen this with Mo and Will Kelly in the past, whichever sprinter that Bethel loads up gets the award. The distance guys rarely are chasing records because everything is tactical. Although, the Mid D carnage was impressive this year. They all stole points from each other.