2022 Indoor Track Season Preview
Picture Credit: JDL Fast Track
My freshman year of college, I qualified for the Indoor National Championship Meet in Winston-Salem, NC. I remember the experience so vividly: walking onto the green and yellow lanes of JDL Fast Track for the first time, seeing Ian LaMere’s signature bun whiz in and out of tall, white support columns as he completed his pre-race workout, feeling so nervous the morning of my prelim that I actually threw up (nice, I know)–all of these memories shaped my first ever D3 nationals experience.
Others, however, may hold a much different recollection of their first (and perhaps even last) time at JDL, as the 2020 championships were abruptly cancelled due to the emerging pandemic. Many recall receiving the news while already in Winston-Salem, prompting them to pack up their suitcases, pile into their school vans or back onto an airplane, and leave the magic of one of the country’s fastest flat 200m tracks behind along with many questions about what could have been if they were allowed to compete in the 2020 indoor season’s pinnacle event.
To make matters worse, the 2021 championships were also cancelled due to COVID, meaning the last championship competition to take place occurred in 2019, robbing two whole graduating classes of an indoor national meet. Three long years later, the 2022 championships are set to take place back in Winston-Salem, keeping many athletes hopeful as they embark on their season-long journey to the Fast Track. With their non-dominant foot forward, track athletes everywhere begin to open up their seasons–some with great promise to make national history within the regular season.
On the track
Ahh, December–when cross country athletes can ride out their fall fitness, and sprinters, hurdlers, throwers, and jumpers everywhere get to see a benchmark test of where they are in the preliminary phases of the winter season. All this work before heading home for the holidays where access to a track is marginal at best–climbing the barbed wire fences of your alma mater high school might be your best shot at preserving the fitness that you have worked so hard to build (we’ve all been there).
But some exciting performances have transpired on the track already this past December, and if I was a betting woman, I’d say many of these athletes are ones to look out for as the season picks back up again in January.
In the distance world, all eyes are on JCU’s Alex Phillip, who weeks after winning the 2021 NCAA XC title opened up the early track season with a 13:58 5k at Grand Valley, just five seconds shy of the NCAA D3 record set by North Central’s Dan Mayer in 1994, years before Phillip was even born. Phillip became the third man in D3 history to run under 14 minutes indoors, giving him the 3rd fastest time run by a D3 athlete under all conditions (Grand Valley has an oversized track, which puts him on a separate list in the record books). With over two months of the season left to go, the NCAA XC champ is sure to make another run at the 28-year-old D3 record.
Other impressive performances thus far in the men’s distance world include Williams’s Elias Lindgren and Wartburg’s Joe Freiburger, who ran 14:15 and 14:18 in the 5k, respectively, as well as CMS’s Henry Pick and Miles Christensen, who ran 8:11 and 8:13 over 3,000m amid a field of D1 and even pro talent, good for #8 and #16 all-time indoors. Pick was third at the NCAA XC meet in November, just ahead of Williams’ Aidan Ryan, who holds the third fastest 3k time indoors. A 3k re-match between these two athletes could certainly rewrite the D3 history books this season.
Ryan also holds the 11th fastest indoor mile time in D3 history, a mark he is sure to try to improve upon this season. Only Ramapo’s Jeremy Hernandez has run under the 4-minute barrier during his career as a D3 athlete, and perhaps Ryan will look to be in his company in his final year of collegiate competition.
In other middle distance news, outdoor national champion Mike Jasa of Loras opened up the season in 1:50.13 over 800m, an indoor personal best and good for #8 all-time in D3 history. Granted, Jasa did not run cross country in the fall, giving him more of a chance to develop his speed while many of is competitors huffed and puffed it for 8,000 meters every weekend, but the beauty of the 800m is that it lies at the intersection of speed and strength, and a strong cross country runner has just as good of a shot as succeeding in this event as an explosive 400m runner. A mark like Jasa’s this early in the season puts him well on track to be under 1:50 by the time championship season rolls around.
And speaking of mixing strength and speed, another D3 record that could be in danger this year is that of the men’s and women’s Distance Medley Relays. Though hard to tell who teams will put forth in a stacked relay this season, it’s hard to ignore the teams that Loras, Williams, Wartburg, and UW-Oshkosh, to name a few, could put together on the men’s side, as well as the women’s teams that UW-Oshkosh and U of Chicago could line up based on early season marks.
Oshkosh’s women currently have two athletes who have run 5:01 in the mile this season and two more who have run 2:13-2:14 in the 800, putting them in good odds to post a mean DMR time. Their men’s team has similar potential with two guys around 1:52-1:53 in the 800, one guy who has run 4:17 for the mile, and a couple of 400m athletes who could easily handle a 50. split in the middle. Perhaps even more impressive could be the team from Loras provided they find a fourth man to run with Jasa’s 1:50, Carter Oberfoell’s 1:52, and Ryan Havey’s 4:10.
And of course, let’s not forget the men’s team from Williams who posted the #2 all-time best DMR time in D3 history in 2020. Although Ryan appears to be the only returner from this team, he clearly has strong runners in teammates Elias Lindgren and Nate Lentz, who have run 4:15 and 4:14 in the mile, respectively. Williams will hardly be content to settle for second, so look for this team to find a fast track and chase down the D3 record later this season.
In women’s distance running, Johns Hopkins’ Ella Baran is clearly back in full force, having posted an early-December time of 9:36 for 3k, good for #15 all-time. Baran sat out much of the XC season, only to come back at the national meet with a 9th place finish to lead her team to the winning trophy. Baran has ranged all the way from 2:13 in the 800 to 16:30 in the 5k, making her a lethal competitor in any distance event. Stick her in a Hopkins DMR and the Blue Jays certainly have a strong shot at improving upon their #11 all-time best mark set in 2013.
Trine’s Evie Miller also posted a strong start to her season, running 9:43 for 3k as well as 16:45 for 5k, the current D3 national lead. After an impressive 20:11 6k finish in the XC season, the second fastest time run for a 6k in championship history, one has to think that Loras’ Kassie Parker could also make a run for the top, perhaps even all the way past Parley Hannan’s national 5k record of 16:05.
In the middle distances, WPI returns Sydney Packard for her sixth year. In 2020, Packard ran 2:06.54 for 800m at BU, narrowly missing the 200m-track D3 national record by 0.01 second. If I was record-holder Emily Richards (which I am), I’d be sweating (which I might be).
And even without an official fall season to showcase fitness, sprinters and hurdlers have also been taking to the track in December to show off just what their fall base has done for them, giving an early glimpse into what to expect on the straightaways this season.
National champion JP Vaught of Centre opened his season with a 60m PR as well as a mark of 21.63 in the 200m dash, just over a tenth of a second behind his #13 all-time performance of 21.52. Look for Vaught to break into the top 10 this year on the path to earning his first indoor national title. He will not go uncontested, however, as the current national lead is a freshman from UW-Oshkosh, Londyn Little. Little debuted his collegiate career with a blazing fast 21.77 around a flat 200m track, putting him just ahead of Vaught, whose time on an oversized track gets converted.
In the 60m hurdles, Koren Leonard, a transfer from NJCAA school Triton College now representing Benedictine, opened his season in 8.01, good for #17 all-time in D3 history. Welcome to the NCAA, Koren! The nation is excited to see what you will bring to the record books.
Jumping high
For high jumpers and pole vaulters, the indoor season is bliss. No wind, no rain, no slipping, just them, the bar, and the mat.
In the high jump, the country can look to national leaders Kyle Rollins of St. John Fisher in the men’s event and Peyton Howell of Ohio Wesleyan in the women’s event. Rollins opened his season at 2.04m, a height he significantly improved upon the following week when he jumped 2.17m, the 9th best indoor mark all-time. For those of you distance runners (like myself) who have a harder time conceptualizing metric marks, that’s 7 feet 1.5 inches, equivalent to the height of Shaquille O’Neill. (And for those of you field athletes reading this, well you just know that that is impressive).
Howell leads the country at 1.71m, or 5’7.25”, just three centimeters shy of her personal best jump of 1.74m, the #22 all-time best indoor high jump mark. This mark is also just one centimeter off the personal best of OWU alum and 5x D3 national high jump champion Cirrus Robinson. With a school record like that in sight, Howell will certainly have high expectations (no pun intended) on the national stage. Howell is joined in competition this year by Colby’s Sharde Johnson, who claimed the outdoor high jump title in 2021 and opened the season at 1.67m.
Another vertical jumper with big alum shoes to chase this season is Ithaca’s Meghan Matheny. Matheny was the 2021 outdoor pole vault champion and currently sits at #23 all-time on the indoor pole vault list with her mark of 3.92m, which she set in the 2020 season. Matheny comes onto the national scene just a few years after that of fellow Bomber Katherine Pitman, who holds both the indoor and outdoor national records at 4.28 and 4.31m, respectively.
In fact, from the years 2017-2019, on either side of Pitman’s most prominent year in 2018, the women’s pole vault field dominated the national lists, as half of the unique top 16 all-time marks were set within this window. Westminster’s Marisa Kalsey set the #2 all-time indoor mark of 4.22m in 2017, and now current Westminster athlete Emma Rudolph leads the nation with her jump of 3.82m. Should Matheny and/or Rudolph be able to vault over 4 meters this year, they will pave the way for a new era of women’s vault and be well on her way to cracking the top 10, joining predecessors Pitman and Kalsey in making national history.
Jumping far
In the horizontal jumps, several athletes who have already signed their names onto the top-25 list will return this year with high expectations. On the men’s side, Brockport State’s Egypt Page (#17 all-time) and UW-Oshkosh’s Jonathan Wilburn (#12 all-time) return to the runway in the long jump and triple jump, respectively. After nabbing the outdoor national title in the long jump, Page opened his indoor season with a leap of 7.27m. Watch out, too, for Trinity’s Sean Powers, your current national leader, as well as Carnegie Mellon’s Justin Kieffel, who beat Page at the outdoor conference meet last spring.
Wilburn is the only athlete to hit the 15m mark in the triple jump so far this season and will likely look to gain momentum after a 4th place finish at the outdoor national meet last spring. However, the national field welcomes back outdoor national champion Ahmir Johnson from Rowan as well as St. Johns Fisher’s Rollins, who placed third.
In the women’s jumps, the nation is currently led by Dubuque’s Emma Seipel in the long jump with her leap of 5.69m. As the season gets rolling, expect U of Chicago’s Isabel Maletich to rise in the ranks—Maletich was the 2021 outdoor national champion and also holds the #11 farthest leap in indoor history at 5.93m. In just a few more centimeters, Maletich can jump her way right into the nation’s top 10 all-time marks.
Maletich also has a dominating history in the triple jump, as her leap of 12.58m from the 2020 season was good for #5 all-time in indoor history. Though her early December mark of 11.40m puts her at #9 on the current national list, don’t be surprised when she drops a bomb in the sand by early Febraury.
In the throws
The throws world has been pretty quiet so far this season, aside from the Greenville freshman who allegedly threw 101.12m in the weight throw on December 4, but if there’s one name you remember this year, let it be Rhode Island College’s Chelsea Yang. Yang’s 2020 mark of 19.42m in the weight throw is good for #9 all-time. Furthermore, Yang has to be one of the most consistent competitors in the ring, as her name can be seen peppered throughout the all-time 25 list a whopping 19 times. That kind of persistence is sure to move Yang up through the ranks in D3 history.
Doing it all
And last but quite the opposite of least, keep an eye on the multi event record books this season, as several athletes have already begun to etch their names in D3 history. In the men’s heptathlon, Loras’ Ryan Rogers is already smashing the leaderboard with his 5,272 point-opener, good for #8 all-time in D3 indoor history. Johns Hopkins’ Justin Canedy does not trail too far behind with his opening performance of 5,245 points, good for #12 all-time. Rogers currently sits #3 in the nation on the pole vault list, while Canedy is tied for 2nd in the high jump and is 5th in the long jump. With athletes like these, who needs specialists?
In the women’s multi-verse, look for some up-and-coming athletes to shine this season. With #2 all-time Emily Lavarnway of SUNY Geneseo and #5 all-time Megan Wallace of UW-Eau Claire transferring out of their respective D3 programs, make way for current national leader Kennady Gibbins of Mount Union, who opened the season at #19 all-time, as well as Ithaca’s Logan Bruce, who currently sits #24 all-time, to step into the limelight.
In just a few day’s time, the regular indoor season will be upon us in full force. Early December results give merely a taste of what to expect as athletes nationwide begin their paths to the fabled JDL Fast Track, an old nemesis to some. Unlike previous indoor seasons, the promise of a national championship taking place here looms in the minds of many athletes, pulling them through the sometimes grueling winter months of training. Uncertain of what may lie ahead and guarding their hearts from the previous heartbreak of cancellation, current competitors have no choice but to lean into the cliché that it’s not always the destination that matters, but the journey.