ST. LOUIS, Mo. – In a vote by the head coaches, the Drake men were slotted sixth while the Bulldog women placed eighth in the Pre-Championship poll.
The 2025 Missouri Valley Conference Outdoor Track and Field Championships is set to take place on May 17-18 in Carbondale Illinois on the campus of Southern Illinois at Lew Hartzog Track and Field Complex. In preparation for the championship, all 12 Valley head coaches were polled for their predictions on the team rankings at this year's competition. In a unanimous decision, Indiana State was selected to claim the women's champion title, followed by Illinois State and Northern Iowa in second and third place respectively. In a similar order on the men's side, the head coaches polled Indiana State with six first place votes, followed by Illinois State by one, and Northern Iowa in third with three first place vote.
Drake's lineup will feature a handful of MVC contenders on both sides. The Bulldog women will league-leaders
Emilie Meyer in the 800 and
Lara Smits in the discus to pace their championship efforts. Meyer is also highly ranked in the women's 1500 and Smits will content for the shot put crown. Other key women's competitors include sprinter
Savannah Ming, distance runners
Tyla Lumley and
Anastasia Kirillov, and throwers
Maud Visscher and
Chinemerem Iwuagwu.
The Drake men's roster features a number of promising athletes including
Harrison Martinenko and
Juan Trasobares in the 1500,
Aidan Palmer in the 5k,
Dylan DeAngelo in the 400 hurdles,
Malachi Collier in the long jump,
Brendan Cain in the steeplechase, and
Sam Carpenter in the hammer throw. The duo of
Adam Phillips and
Aziz Jdai also lead the league in their respective events, the hammer throw and 3000m steeplechase.
With 144 total points and twelve first-place votes, Indiana State earned the top spot among the coaches, looking to earn their ninth MVC Outdoor Track and Field women's title after claiming their first outdoor program title since 2013, last year at the 2024 championships. The Sycamores hold five top spots in The Valley best list this season in the 100m hurdles, pole vault, long jump, triple jump, and javelin. In addition to Sycamore's top spots, they also mark 34 total scoring positions in the top eight across all events. Most notably Rachel Mehringer leads the Sycamores with her 13.03 time, set this past weekend, where she became the new MVC All-Time Record holder for the event that has not been broken in nearly a decade. Mehringer also holds top spots on the National stage with this time where she is ranked fourteenth in the entire NCAA and eighth in the NCAA East Qualifying List. In the Pole Vault Brooklyn Giertz-Pfaff lead the Sycamore squad with a best height of 4.09 meters this past weekend. The Sycamores currently hold four top five positions in the event heading into the championship weekend.
Indiana State earns six first place votes among the coaches for a total of 96 points. The Sycamores hold seven top Valley spots in the discus, long Jump, pole vault, 4x100m relay, 110m hurdles, 200m dash, and 100m dash. In addition to the Sycamores' top spots the squad also holds 41 total scoring positions in the top eight across all events. All-Americans Will Staggs and Casey Hood Jr. headline the Sycamore squad not just in The Valley but on the national map. Will Staggs sits second in the NCAA East Qualifying Region and is tied eighth in the entire NCAA in the Pole Vault with a height of 5.53m set at the Jesse Owens Classic earlier this month. Coming off his NCAA National Indoor Track and Field Championships All-American honors, Casey Hood Jr. leads in The Valley in the 100m and 200m with top times of 10.08 and 20.64 respectively.
For more information on the 2025 MVC Outdoor Track and Field Championship visit the link
here.
