The midway point of the track and field season arrived with the Hoosiers on every team’s radar.
The young quartet of sophomore Tre’tez Kinnaird and juniors Sophie Gutermuth, Dylan Anderson and Stephen Keller all competed at the national level in surprising fashion, as Keller was the only athlete to remain stationary in his seeding, finishing an expected 10th-place in the heptathlon.
Anderson, the 16th seed in the men’s heptathlon, finished at ninth place with a career-high total of 5,605 points, Gutermuth finished in a disappointing 12th place, after being projected at seventh, with one of her lowest vaults of the year, 4.10 meters.
“This group really went in and did some pretty good things,” IU coach Ron Helmer said. “They had the right approach, knowing that they could compete with these other athletes.”
Kinnaird finished eighth in the men’s 800-meter run after being projected at 15th in the nation. His prelim time of 1:48.57 was the second-fastest performance in IU history, behind his record of 1:48.20.
He became the first IU 800-meter All-American since Keith Allen finished third in the national meet in 1988
“I’m honored and relieved,” Kinnaird said. “It’s nice to know that all of the work that we have put into this is worth it. I’ve worked really hard to get here.”
Kinnaird became a First Team All-American with his top-eight finish in the prelim qualifying race, the only Hoosier First Team All-American, but ran one of the slowest times in his career, with a time of 1:51.98, in the final.
“I just didn’t execute the way I wanted to,” Kinnaird said about his final race. “When you compete in these races, it’s really competitive, so you have to be almost perfect to win. I just didn’t get off to the best start.”
IU’s last First Team All-American was last year’s Distance Medley Relay team, which included Kinnaird, and finished third in the nation.
Another athlete who flirted with First-Team All-American honors was Anderson in the heptathlon.
After the first day of competition, through four events, Anderson sat at seventh place, already eight spots ahead of his projected finish and on his way to clinching First Team All-American honors on the second day.
“I was pumped,” Anderson said. “I was really feeding off of the experience of being there at the national meet, competing against all of the best guys in the nation.”
On the final event of the second day, the 1,000-meter run, he was notched at sixth place until a dismal 13th place finish dropped him to ninth, where he finished and missed out on First Team All-American honors by a single spot.
“It is a weak event for me,” Anderson said. “It just shows that I need to get back and put more miles in. I just went out too fast at the beginning.”
Anderson set personal records in both the shotput and high jump events, with a throw of 13.78 meters in the shotput and a jump of 2.04 meters in the high jump.
“I wish he could have found a way to reach down and hold on to that All-America spot,” Helmer said, “but he still did a great job for someone seeded as low as he was, and he set some good personal records.”
If Anderson had held on, he would have become the first First Team All-American heptathlete in IU history.
Gutermuth and Keller were struck with nerves, Helmer said. Being tense in the midst of national competition can lead to loss of focus and disappointing results.
“It’s like a basketball player at the free throw line with two seconds left,” Helmer said. “All of a sudden, it isn’t just a free throw anymore, and the pressure just stacks.”
IU will continue its season in outdoor meets for the rest of the season, as the indoor season has come to a close and spring falls upon Bloomington.
“We’ve been training since August,” Helmer said. “We may recalibrate things a little bit, but, for the most part, we will just continue to take steps forward in the process that we already have going.”
