Thirteen Kansas Wesleyan track and field athletes are scheduled to compete in the 44th annual NAIA Outdoor National Championships this week.

Seven women and six men will travel to Marion, Ind. for the two events on the campus of Indiana Wesleyan University. The competition begins on Wednesday and continues through Friday.

The KWU men placed second and the women fifth in the Kansas Conference Championships on May 1-2 in Salina.

WOMEN'S QUALIFIERS
The seven Coyotes are entered in two events – javelin and 4x800-meter relay.

Freshmen Mayce Russell and Madelyne Wolf qualified for the javelin along with Madisyn Ehrlich, Jose Koppes, Hailey Nordhus, Joni Schroeder and alternate Shelby Lingle in the 4x800.

Wolf and Russell have been sensational in their first college seasons. Wolf won the KCAC title and has a season-best throw of 44.04 meters while Russell was third in the conference meet and has a season best of 44.08. Russell is seeded fourth and Wolf fifth at the NAIA meet.

"The first time I threw javelin I never thought that I'd be able to come this far," Wolf said. "And having Mayce with me and both of us doing this as freshmen is just really amazing. It was our goal at the beginning of the year, which seems like a big goal, but I knew that we could do it."

Wolf first threw the javelin as a sophomore at Heritage Christian Academy in Olathe and rapidly improved. She started at her father's urging.

"I play volleyball too, so he was like 'there's a lot of correspondence between volleyball and jav and I think you'd really have fun.' I was like 'okay, whatever, I'll give it a try.' We didn't have a coach or anything, but I just had so much fun doing it."

Wolf says form is the key.

"I love that it's so much technique and you don't have to be insanely strong to do it but being strong helps," she said. "I love how precise you have to be with form in order to get it to even go any distance."

Wolf credits KWU assistant coach Clayton Herdman for her progress. Herdman, a volunteer, was named the KCAC Women's Assistant Coach of the Year.

"He has just made javelin even more fun, and I've learned so much about form and everything from him," Wolf said. "I never had a javelin coach before and he's like a big brother. He just is so amazing for all of us javelin throwers and he really pushes us to be our best."

"It's combination of two things – extremely talented athletes and really good coaching," KWU coach Kyle Hiser said. "Coach Herdman cares about the athletes first and foremost and then how knowledgeable he is in the event. He gets those athletes to really buy in, and they get a lot better from it."

Wolf is thrilled that she and Russell, who hails from Macksville, will make the trip together.

"We're friends outside of javelin too," she said. "It's just really awesome to have her there because we're going through the exact same things and no matter what happens we're both supportive and proud for each other."

The 4x800 relay team is the 22nd seed after placing second in the KCAC meet (9:24.15).

"We just missed last year's outdoors, and we have a quartet of women that get to experience it," Hiser said. "We were ninth place indoors so trying to find a way to sneak into an outdoors final. There are nine lanes indoors so we would have been in the final if that was the case for outdoors."

MEN'S QUALIFIERS
The 4x800 relay team of Julian Avila, Triston Cottone, Ty Davidson, Wyatt Johnson and alternate Giovanni Rios returns to the big stage after finishing eighth a year ago. They placed fourth at the NAIA indoors this winter.

The group won the KCAC Championship earlier this month with a time of 7:35.47 and enters nationals seeded 11th.

"I think Kansas Wesleyan is becoming synonymous with the NAIA National Championships and being there in four by eights," Hiser said. "For the men it's just going back and trying to replicate what we did last year.

"Coming off a fourth-place finish indoors but it gets tougher outdoors because there's more teams and outdoors gets fast. We've been able to get to some big meets … so they're experienced and they're ready for it."

Avila and Johnson, both seniors, also will compete in the 800 meters, each qualifying at a last chance that followed the KCAC. Johnson won the conference 800 (1:52.65) while Avila was third (1:54.04).

Johnson heads to Indiana seeded ninth and Avila 25th.

"Julian has done a lot for this program over the last three years, and he's sacrificed a lot to get to this position," Hiser said. "For him as a senior to end it at outdoor nationals and compete individually is pretty exciting and a huge accomplishment. He doesn't miss the little things.

"Wyatt does the same thing. When you're trying to run at a national level and qualify, especially with how hard the NAIA is, you've got to do little things right and both Julian and Wyatt do that extremely well."

Keegan Lott will throw the javelin in the national meet. He placed second in the KCAC (59.03 meters) and is a veteran of NAIA competition having previously qualified for the outdoor discus and indoor shot put.

Lott finished third in the shot put and third discus at the conference meet.

"Keegan's multifaceted in all the throws but has been getting better and better with the javelin," Hiser said. "It's kind of what's feeling hot right now. He actually throws right before the women, so I think that might help ease the nerves."