Church matches Pride track and field's best individual finish in at NAIA Indoor Championships

BROOKINGS, S.D. - Officially closing out the indoor season on the first day of March, the Clarke University men's track and field team earned points at the NAIA Indoor National Championship for the first time since 2020 as Noah Church highlighted the group of five qualifiers with his runner-up finish in the 3,000-meter racewalk event on Friday.

Church clocked in at a Clarke school record of 13:16.02, finishing just 20 seconds off of the race winner's time of 12:56.89 as Church becomes just the second national runner-up in the history of the Pride men's track and field program and just the fourth person overall between both the men's and women's program to finish in second place in their event.

With his qualification and participation in the 3K racewalk in 2024, that marked the third-straight indoor national meet that Church competed in and the fourth national meet overall in his last five season, also qualifying for the 2022 outdoor meet but not in 2023.

Of CU's other four national qualifiers, both Brody Deitering and James Vandun took part in the heptathlon where Deitering would finish in 10th place by the end of the seven events and Vandun would finish at 15th. Deitering was a strong performer in running events, finishing in second place in the 1,000-meter run and in third place in the 60-meter dash while Vandun had his top event finish in the long jump, where he currently holds the school record for the Pride.

Competing in their first NAIA national meets were sophomore Gavayne Smith and freshman Daniel Adams as the pair of Pride record holders got a taste of the top stage in the NAIA as Smith clocked in at the 60-meter dash prelims with a 6.93, just .07 off of his school record time of 6.86 but failed to qualify for the finals while Adams took his recently acquired skill of the high jump to a 21st place finish with a tallest clearance of 1.97 meters.

These five will now join their teammates in preparation for the outdoor track and field season that gets kicked off for Clarke on Mar. 23 when they travel to Des Moines, Iowa for the Viking Relays hosted by Grand View University.