It was a whirlwind of emotions for the Central track and field athletes that qualified for the Indoor National Meet. The Dutch originally had four qualifiers for the event in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. It was scheduled to take place the weekend immediately after the COVID-19 outbreak took hold of the country, meaning several schools around the nation decided not to make the trip. That opened the door for Central freshman distance runner Mari Stein, who was selected as an alternate.

“I got a call about 11:00 on Wednesday morning. And it was Coach Dunham, and he just said really calmly, ‘You got into Nationals, do you want to go?’ And I was like ‘Yeah, of course!’ and so I just got really, really excited, and I was at the airport within like three hours of finding out. And yeah, I thought it was just pretty crazy.”

Stein and Assistant Coach Joe Dunham arrived in the Tar Heel State later that day, and even got in a practice session at the event venue. It was the following afternoon when it was announced that the meet was being cancelled due to coronavirus concerns.

“We found out about 4:00 that the meet was cancelled. I remember Kennedy Morris walked into our hotel room and she was just like, ‘Guys, the meet’s cancelled,’ and we all just started crying, we didn’t really know what to do and it just felt like the whole trip was for not. Which was obviously false, we ended up having a really good time after that. We went to eat at a lot of cool places, had some really good bonding time together, but at that point we found out it was just really devastating for us, but overall it was a really fun trip.”

All of the student-athletes representing the American Rivers Conference gathered in a hotel conference room that evening and received a video call from Iowa track and field icon Mike Jay. The Central crew spent a few more days in North Carolina awaiting a flight home, allowing for some sightseeing around the Winston-Salem area.

Central’s other qualifiers were brothers Brock and Drake Lewis in the long jump and high jump, as well as Kennedy Morris and Mary Gray in the weight throw and pentathlon. Stein and the rest of the Dutch will look forward to being back in action for the 2020 Dutch Invitational Friday, September 4th at Central’s cross country course.