TWO NEW SCHOOL RECORDS

Junior Cole Stencel, from Maple River High School in southern Minnesota, has been on a tear this indoor season having already broken two of our long standing school records — the indoor mile, which was previously held by John Mathews from 2003, as well as the 3,000m, which was previously held by two-time steeplechase national champion Jim Gathje from 1985 — as well as a good attempt at Tommy Feichtinger’s 2016 record in the 1,000m. Both of Cole’s record setting races were run at the University of Minnesota, and just two weeks apart from each other.

INDOOR MILE - gopher classic on 2/7

The race was set up very well for Cole with a few of the Gophers doing the early leading until Cole decided to blow by them all on the last lap, closing in 58 with 2:08-2:02 as his 800m splits on his way to winning the race. While I was thinking Cole would have a good chance at this record later this indoor season, I was not expecting it to be so early on in the year. Results below.

INDOOR 3K - snowshoe open on 2/20

We had originally planned on Cole running the 3K at the Gopher Classic meet, but when the mile field shaped up to be very competitive at that meet, we decided to change plans and then hope that a good 3K field would appear at this meet a couple weeks later — and that’s exactly what happened. Once again, a couple of Gophers did the early leading in the race clicking off 33 second laps like clockwork. Cole, in just his second 3K ever, got in line and played followed the leader until closing in 31 and boom — 8:19.52.

As always, we are ultimately focused on running our best races of the year in May — which makes what Cole has done so far this year very impressive.

We’ve had several other great performances as well during our short and sweet indoor season and are looking forward to a great MIAC Championship this weekend. One other notable performance I should highlight is freshmen Nolan Pfeilsticker’s 800m race from this past weekend at Mankato State. Coming into SJU with an 800m PR of 2:08.83 from his high school section meet last year, and a previous best of 2:05.90 this indoor season so far, Nolan ran 2:01.69 last weekend to sneak into the indoor conference meet. Cole’s 3K last weekend was great… but Nolan may have had the race of the weekend! :)

INDOOR MIAC PREVIEW

The indoor conference meet is at Carleton this year, and it should be a solid team race between Bethel, led by mostly sprinters and throwers, St. Olaf, led by mostly mid-distance and distance runners and us, with a smattering of points across most of the events. Owen Montreuil in the 600m and 800m, Cole Stencel in the Mile and 1000m, Nick St. Peter and Lars Molenkamp in the 1000m and Jacob Malecha in the 5000m all look to have great point-scoring opportunities this weekend, along with a very competitive DMR team and several other guys who have qualified in the distance events as well (you never know!).

A schedule of events is below. Would love to see a few of you at the meet in Northfield, but otherwise you can view the live results here: MIAC Indoor Championships - Feb 26 – 28, 2026 | Fast Finish Results

And a live stream of the meet here: MIAC

Talk to you again soon,

Maxwell