After finishing tied for 19th place at the NCAA Championships, the women’s track and field team returned home Sunday with two First-Team All-Americans.
With only two athletes competing — redshirt sophomore Katherine Receveur and redshirt senior Sydney Clute — IU was able to scrape together 11 total team points. The Hoosiers also scored more than any other Big Ten school, which was something coach Ron Helmer said was important to him.
“A top-20 finish at a national championship for our team is certainly something significant,” Helmer said. “With Sydney having scored five points, Katherine needed to score six so we could get to 11. What that does is put us ahead of all the people who had an individual champion and nothing else.”
At the national meet, only the top eight competitors score and a team is rewarded 10 points for an athlete winning an event. Clute put IU on the board first with her fourth-place finish in the pole vault. Receveur added the remaining six points with a third-place finish in the 5,000m run.
After having such a successful indoor campaign where she earned First-Team All-American honors, Receveur had a bit of an up-and-down outdoor season that still saw her turn in good results. Helmer said he was not worried and that this was all a part of the growing process.
“I think she was going through some growing pains as all athletes do when they breakthrough to that higher level like she did in indoors,” Helmer said. “If nothing else, the expectations change. It’s the reality that you are now expected to run and compete well against the best in the country.
“I think it became a burden for her in outdoor track. She started overthinking things and was forgetting that she is a great athlete. She sort of resolved those things as we worked our way through the championship part of the season and was extremely relaxed, composed and confident in that race at the national meet.”
With six laps left in the race, she was in 22nd of 24 runners. One lap later, Receveur made her way to the top of the pack and was in sixth place. She used a push towards the end of the race to move into third where she finished with a time of 15:44.80, breaking her own school record.
Receveur is IU’s first women’s All-American in the 5k and is also the first Hoosier to earn First-Team All-American honors in cross country, indoor and outdoor track and field.
Also earning First-Team All-American accolades for IU, Clute finished her career as a Hoosier with a fourth-place finish in the pole vault. She ended her storied career as a three-time First-Team All-American, a three-time Big Ten champion and is the IU school record holder for indoor and outdoor pole vaulting.
“It’ll be extremely difficult to replace her,” Helmer said. “She’s the person that negates the noise. There are people who want to tell you it’s really hard to be a good student and a great athlete. If you’re committed, you can absolutely do that. She was the one who showed you can if you make the proper lifestyle choices and if you work at a level that will give you a chance to be successful.”
Clute was about as successful as an athlete could hope for, both in her sport and in the classroom. She added to her long list of achievements by finishing fourth at the NCAA Championships with a clearance of 4.40m (14-5.25).
“She’s a great example for us,” Helmer said. “She’s going to come ready each day and she’s going to be who she is every day, which includes being a great example for those who aspire to do the kind of things she has done. When you don’t have someone like that, it makes it that much more difficult. We see it all the time with the groups that don’t have good leadership yet. They struggle for a while until someone emerges.”
The men’s side for IU didn’t bring back the same results as the women. The Hoosiers sent four competitors to the NCAA Championships, but none of them were able to score. Sophomore Willie Morrison was the closest with his ninth-place finish in the shot put.
“Willie is getting closer,” Helmer said. “He threw okay, but he had throws in him that would have put him into the top five. All the throwing events are where maturity and age matter a lot and he is still a young guy compared to those who are getting to the final. I don’t want to make an excuse for him, but the reality of it is we still have to remember that.”
Morrison made the final, but finished just outside the top eight. His mark of 18.97m (62-3) earned him second team All-American honors for a third consecutive season dating back to last year’s outdoor National Championships. After finishing 16th last outdoor season and 10th earlier this year at the Indoor NCAA Championships, his ninth-place finish is the highest of his career at a national meet.
“He managed it better this year than he did last year and once he’s there, he’ll be rock solid,” Helmer said. “He’s the guy, it’s not like we have a 22-year-old showing him how to handle it. Willie’s there by himself. He’ll do that for someone else one day and I think as a group, they will mature much more quickly as a result, but right now he’s the guy trying to figure it out.”
Freshman William Session was trying to figure out the national meet as it was his first trip to the NCAA Championships in his young career. The true freshman finished 19th in the 110m hurdles with a time of 13.91. Helmer said his entire championship run was incredible because Session was able to set a new lifetime best mark in each race.
“Freshman don’t do that, but he did and came out of it with great confidence,” Helmer said. “I was extremely impressed with the way he managed that environment and performed. I think of the four, William had the best meet. He demystified the national meet for freshman and it’s not going to be long before he goes into that meet with the best in the country and scores points.”
Along with Session, redshirt senior Jason Crist and sophomore Eric Bethea both earned honorable mention All-American honors as well. Crist finished 20th in the men’s 5k and Bethea finished 22nd in the triple jump competition.
Helmer said he was slightly disappointed in Crist’s final race as a Hoosier because he felt like it wasn’t a good representation of the athlete he was. Crist stayed near the back for most of the race, but with three laps remaining, the pack split and he wasn’t able to stay up with the leaders. He finished with a time of 14:53.63.
Bethea came off an injury that kept him out of the Big Ten meet before he narrowly made the cut in the East Regionals two weeks ago in Kentucky. Helmer said he didn’t want to give his young jumper a pass, but that he might not have had the most confidence going in to this meet given the circumstances.
His final jump was his longest with a mark of 15.03m. He is the sixth IU triple jumper to earn All-American honors and the first since Aarik Wilson did it in 2005. Earlier this year, Bethea finished 14th at the indoor national meet and won the Big Ten Championship.
“He’s got growth he needs to go through as well as others,” Helmer said. “Just like Willie, he’s our triple jump guy. There’s no one there to ease him through it and make him feel more comfortable along the way. He’s been to the national meet twice now this sophomore season so he knows what it’s like.”
Although they didn’t score this year, Helmer said his men’s side is right where he wants them to be and that he is very excited about the future moving forward.
“I think we are right there,” Helmer said. “I think we can be a very good national meet team in the next few years and we are really excited about that. It’s not just blind optimism, we know what we have and these kids are really special.”
