USTFCCCA News & Notes
The Next Generation Arrives In NCAA Division III
First, it was Aidan Ryan of Williams on January 15 in Seattle.
Then it was Ryan, again, on January 30 in Boston.
Ella Baran of Johns Hopkins, Mike Jasa of Loras, Kassie Parker of Loras and Esther Seeland of Messiah all followed suit on February 5, several hours and more than 700 miles apart from each other in New York (Baran and Seeland) and Notre Dame, Indiana (Jasa and Parker, respectively).
Together, they are commanding respect for NCAA Division III one race at a time.
Let’s start with Ryan, who set an NCAA DIII all-time best in the 3000 of 7:55.29 at the UW Preview and shattered the divisional record in the mile with his 3:56.88 at the Boston University John Thomas Terrier Classic. Ryan finished as the top collegian in the field at the BU meet and in doing so clocked what is still the season’s fourth-fastest mile a 200-meter track.
Not long after Jasa took third out of 48 athletes in the 800m at the Meyo Invitational with a top-5 all-conditions mark in NCAA DIII history, Seeland shattered a women’s divisional record in the event at the Dr. Sander Columbia Challenge. Seeland turned four laps in 2:05.90, shaving 0.63 seconds off the previous best of 2:06.53 established by Emily Richards in 2018 (Richards is still No. 1 on the all-conditions chart with her 2:05.28 and holds the outdoor record at 2:00.62).
Baran also starred on the big stage of the New Balance Track & Field Center at The Armory this past weekend. In a mile field comprised primarily of professional athletes, Baran hung tough and ended up demolishing a near 17-year-old divisional record in the process. Baran stopped the clock in 4:40.53, taking more than three seconds off the previous standard of 4:43.92 set by Missy Buttry in 2005, which only one athlete got within one second of in the past nine years.
Parker, the individual champion at the 2021 NCAA DIII Cross Country Championships, toed the starting line for the 3000 at the Meyo Invitational alongside five other women who earned All-America honors in the fall at the NCAA DI level: Bethany Hasz of Minnesota (seventh), Olivia Harkezich of Notre Dame (11th), Joyce Kimeli of Auburn (16th), Megan Hasz of Minnesota (23rd) and Abby Kohut-Jackson of Minnesota (39th). A fourth-place finish gave Parker another feather in her already impressive cap, but her time of 9:13.10 put her name right behind an NCAA DIII legend. Parker was just 0.08 seconds from tying the all-time, all-conditions NCAA DIII best of 9:13.02 set by Missy Buttry in 2005 (Both of those marks are faster than the recognized NCAA DIII record of 9:20.85, also by Buttry two years earlier in Cedar Falls, Iowa).
It’s not like what Baran, Jasa, Parker, Seeland and Ryan hasn’t been done before (remember athletes like Edwin Moses, Mike Juskus, Arnie Schrader, Andrew Rock, Buttry, Ian LaMere, Emily Richards and Wadeline Jonathas, to name a few): this is just the next generation.