Bethel Track Ex­cited for Out­door Sea­son

MISHAWAKA—Bethel Col­lege’s In­door Track and Field teams have swept the boards this year ac­com­plish­ing many goals. Ac­cord­ing to Head Coach Tony Na­tali the team holds not only a team goal, but each in­di­vid­ual ath­lete also fo­cuses on their own spe­cific goals and ac­com­plish­ments.  

The men’s track and field team has won in­door con­fer­ence, Chris­t­ian na­tion­als, while the wom­en’s team won sec­ond in Chris­t­ian na­tion­als—the high­est they have reached in a while, ac­cord­ing to Na­tali. 

At the NAIA cham­pi­onship there were two na­tional cham­pi­ons and 11 All-Amer­i­cans. When asked about all of the trav­el­ing the team has done in the past few months, both as a team and in­di­vid­u­ally, Na­tali said, “As a team most of our meets have been in In­di­ana and Michi­gan. Chris­t­ian Na­tion­als were at Cedarville in Ohio, which was a good ex­pe­ri­ence for us to grow as a team and bond as team.  

“Then for NAIA na­tion­als we took 22 kids to South Dakota State Uni­ver­sity—that was a great track, but it was re­ally cold. Then Jor­dan Downs had the op­por­tu­nity to com­pete in New York--just him in­di­vid­u­ally. He qual­i­fied for the USA Track and Field Na­tion­als, in­door, and he won the long jump out there, so that was a great ex­pe­ri­ence for him  in­di­vid­u­ally.” 

Now that the in­door sea­son has fi­nally come to a close, the team is be­gin­ning to pre­pare for the com­pet­i­tive out­door sea­son. One of the tricky things about the out­door sea­son is that it re­lies a lot on weather, so there are some­times un­ex­pected chal­lenges. In­door sea­son takes place in a cli­mate-con­trolled en­vi­ron­ment, which al­lows the ath­lete to fo­cus on their com­pe­ti­tion. 

When asked about what he ex­pects to see in the up­com­ing out­door sea­son, Na­tali said, “We just want to get bet­ter every week. We just want to im­prove in­di­vid­u­ally, and we feel like if we can do that, then at the end of the year we will be where we need to be. We will do the best that we can and given the sit­u­a­tions that we are in and will try to glo­rify God the best we can with our abil­i­ties and do the best we can.” 

Some of the up and com­ing ath­letes to look out for, ac­cord­ing to Na­tali, are Emma Jankowski, sopho­more, and Jor­dan Downs, se­nior. Na­tali said both ath­letes have had a phe­nom­e­nal in­door sea­son thus far and every­one is look­ing for­ward to see­ing how they will com­pete in the up­com­ing out­door  sea­son.  

Aside from those two ath­letes, the team pro­duced 11 All-Amer­i­cans. Na­tali is hop­ing those ath­letes will qual­ify again for the out­door com­pe­ti­tions, along­side the other ath­letes who barely missed the mark to qual­ify. 

“We have a very young team, a lot of fresh­men and sopho­mores so we are very fresh­men- sopho­more dom­i­nate. We have about 43 fresh­men, so our fresh­men class will be re­ally in­stru­men­tal for our team mov­ing for­ward,” said Na­tali.  

Be­cause the team is so young, Na­tali is look­ing for­ward to watch­ing the ath­letes grow in their com­pet­i­tive tal­ents, con­tinue to break records and to glo­rify God. 

The Track and Field team will com­pete at their first out­door meet on March 23 in Mar­ion, Ind.