MANKATO, Minn. – After spending all winter breaking records in the middle distances, Minot State runner
Lewis Cotterill added another accolade to his list of accomplishments this season: All-Conference honors.
Saturday at the NSIC Indoor Track and Field Championships, Cotterill led the way for the Beavers as he finished third in the men's 600 meters, earning All-Conference honors on a day that also saw women's distance runner
Caitlin Cornell add a school record of her own in the 3,000 meters for Minot State.
They led the way for the Minot State men and women, respectively, as the Beavers finished 10th in the men's team standings with 20 points, and the women were 13th in the team race with 7 points.
After qualifying for the finals with the fourth-fastest time on Friday, Cotterill finished third in the 600 in 1 minute, 22.26 seconds to earn All-Conference honors on Saturday as the Championships concluded. Ben Schmied of host Minnesota State won the NSIC title in the event in 1:21.11.
As for Cornell, she shattered her own NCAA Division II-era school record in the women's 3,000 on Saturday as she finished eighth in the event in 10 minutes, 9.86 seconds, shaving more than 13 seconds off her previous-best time of 10:22.92 in the event which she ran in December.
While they led the way, the Beavers also got top performances from
Jacob Jensen and
Nick Merillana in the men's mile,
Juan Gutierrez in the men's 800,
Corbin Harris,
Leif Nelson, and
Samuel Kreins in the men's shot put, and
Kori Nagel in the women's shot put, while the men's 4x400 relay team added a sixth-place finish in 3:26.46.
Jensen was seventh in the mile in 4:19.64, and Merillana was eighth in 4:23.32, both scoring team points for Minot State, while Gutierrez was seventh in the 800 in 1:57.71, Harris finished sixth in the shot with a throw of 49 feet, 7 inches, Nelson was ninth with a mark of 48-10, and Kreins was 10th with a distance of 48-1.75.
On the women's side, Nagel was fifth in the shot with a throw of 44 feet, 4 inches, also scoring team points for the Minot State women.
The NSIC Championships wraps up the indoor season for much of the Beaver student-athletes, though thrower
Jenna Hardy and distance runner, Jensen, who each hit NCAA provisional qualifying marks, will wait and see if they receive a berth to nationals March 11-12 in Pittsburg, Kan.
