South Dakota State University announced on April 15 that its track and field team will divide to compete at two separate events: the Bryan Clay Invitational in Azusa, California, and the Phil Esten Challenge hosted by the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.
The decision to send athletes to different locations allows the team to participate in two major collegiate meets simultaneously. This approach provides opportunities for both distance runners and sprinters to compete against high-level competition across various events.
At the Bryan Clay Invitational, several distance runners will represent South Dakota State. The meet begins Thursday evening with the 3000-meter steeplechase and concludes Saturday night with multiple sections of the 1500-meter race. Cody Larson is scheduled to compete in both events. Larson currently holds program records for each event and previously qualified for last year’s NCAA Outdoor Championship meet. This weekend marks his second outdoor appearance this season, including his first steeplechase since last year’s NCAA preliminaries.
The women’s 4×400-meter relay team is also set to compete at Bryan Clay on Saturday. The group—Story Rasby, Erika Kuntz, Reese Luze, and Jenna Johnson—recently posted a time of 3:43.49, making them the second-fastest relay squad in school history. Kuntz and Johnson were part of last year’s record-setting relay team as well.
Meanwhile, most of South Dakota State’s remaining athletes will travel to La Crosse for the Phil Esten Challenge beginning Thursday morning with multi-events and throws before moving into track competitions later that day. Ryan Benson will complete decathlon events on Friday afternoon as part of this meet.
Ellie Harris plans to race in both the 4×100-meter relay and preliminary heats of the 100-meter dash after recently setting a new school record in the outdoor 200 meters with a time of 23.81 seconds—the second Jackrabbit ever under twenty-four seconds outdoors at that distance. Lucas Flemmer is slated for action in the men’s 400 meters after becoming SDSU’s third-fastest performer over that distance during his recent win at Drake University’s Jim Duncan Invitational.
