The IU Track and Field indoor season ends this weekend at the NCAA Indoor Championships in Fayatteville, Ark., and four Hoosiers qualified to compete.
Junior pole vaulter Sophie Gutermuth, junior heptathletes Stephen Keller and Dylan Anderson and sophomore middle distance runner Tre’tez Kinnaird will compete with the nation’s top 16 athletes in each event.
The last time there were four Hoosiers in the NCAA Indoors was 2003, when the program sent five athletes to compete in eight events.
“The biggest challenge for the athletes is just remembering that it’s just another meet,” IU coach Ron Helmer said. “It doesn’t require anything more than what they have been doing all season.”
These Hoosiers have been breaking records all season.
Gutermuth broke her own school record twice, including a school record vault of 4.34 meters in her second-place finish at the Big Ten Championships. Heptathletes Stephen Keller and Dylan Anderson hold the second- and third-highest totals in school history, respectively, after they burst onto the scene with third and fourth finishes in Big Tens.
Kinnaird also broke an IU record in the 800-meter run with a time of 1:48.20, but recently he has struggled. He ran a disappointing leg in the men’s distance medley relay at the Alex Wilson Invitational and ran his worst 800-meter race in the past year at the Big Ten preliminary run.
He still managed to win a Big Ten Championship in the 800 meters, however, with a time of 1:48.89.
“I just ran poorly,” Kinnaird said. “For the DMR, it was my first time running the 1200 split. It was so different, and the race didn’t start out as planned. In the 800, I just ran to qualify for the final and almost gave myself a heart ?attack.”
After a third-place finish at nationals last season, the men’s DMR was expected to qualify for nationals this season, but the team finished 12th place in the meet and 32nd nationally after Kinnaird struggled in the first leg.
Kinnaird finished his Friday with a poor 800-meter run, his worst finish since the 2014 Gladstein Invitational, and nearly missed the final.
“There were so many things that just piled on top of each other,” Kinnaird said. “You just have to take it for what it is and move on.”
Kinnaird moved on. He ran the 800-meter final in dominant fashion and led the entire race to win IU’s only Big Ten championship this.
“Tre’tez did exactly what great athletes do,” Helmer said. “He managed a lot of negative stuff and came out and ran really well. I couldn’t be more proud of him.”
The only other Big Ten representative in the field is Illinois’ Joe McAsey, who owns the ninth-best time in the nation and lost to Kinnaird in the Big Ten final.
“I know I have a low seed,” Kinnaird said. “But I just tell myself that I belong here, and that confidence will only make good things happen.”
Another Hoosier who has a low seed in the national meet is Anderson, who set the third-best heptathlon score in IU history with 5,561 points.
“I just want to go in and beat people,” Anderson said. “I want to be competitive and show that I belong there, and I know Keller wants to do the same thing.”
Keller sits at 10th in the nation with his second-best IU score of 5,706 points.
After having sights set on nationals last season and failing to qualify, Anderson and Keller are not preparing any differently this week.
“Only having two weeks of rest is a little new for us,” Anderson said. “We’re just nursing up some bruises and staying fresh, but I am super excited.”
As all four Hoosiers will inevitably be named Second Team All-Americans as the top 16 in the nation, Helmer wants each of them to aim for the first team, reserved for the top eight in the nation.
11 athletes have been named First Team All-Americans since Helmer rejoined the program as head coach in 2007, but never have four athletes been named to the first team in Helmer’s tenure.
“Scoring points and being named a First Team All-American is a goal that they should all have,” Helmer said.
