Three spring sport standouts who embarked on successful postgraduate careers are the newest members of the Central College Athletics Hall of Honor. NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship recipient and Iowa Conference baseball MVP Adam Duerfeldt ’06, all-American women’s track and field heptathlete and volleyball outside hitter Lindsay Schultz Janke ’04, and all-American softball catcher Annie Van Wetzinga ’01 will be inducted as part of Central’s homecoming activities this fall. A banquet for the honorees is set for 6:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 7 in the Harry and Bernice Vermeer Banquet Hall in the Graham Conference Center. The banquet is open to the public but there is a charge for the meal and reservations are required. Contact Ardie Sutphen at sutphena@central.edu or call the athletics department at 641-628-5226 for more information. Established in 2002, Central’s Hall of Honor is intended to recognize those who were not only exceptional performers in the athletics arena as a student-athlete, coach or administrator, but who have distinguished themselves in life after graduation through service and leadership. To be eligible for consideration, a nominee must have graduated or served as a Central coach/administrator at least 15 years earlier. Current Central staff members are typically not considered. This year’s inductions will raise the hall’s membership level to 66.

A rotating nine-member selection committee includes alumni from four different eras (prior to 1980, 1980-89, 1990-99 and 2000-09) as well as four alumni in at-large roles, along with athletics director Eric Van Kley.

Duerfeldt conducted drug discovery research after baseball career—A stellar baseball and academic career resulted in Duerfeldt’s award as the 2006 CoSIDA Academic All-America® of the Year. He was a two-year Central co-captain and led the 2006 Dutch to a share of their first Iowa Conference championship in 31 years, posting a 26-14 overall mark. Duerfeldt ranked fifth in the NCAA Division III with a school-record .481 batting mark, scoring 48 runs, driving in 65 and hitting six home runs. He batted a school-record .384 for his career and ranks third in career RBIs with 129, fourth in runs with 135, tied for ninth in home runs with 16, tied for third in doubles with 41, second in triples with 12, fifth in slugging percentage at .594 and second in total bases with 320. He set 15 school records overall including longest hitting streak (20 games).

An Urbandale, Iowa native, Duerfeldt was named the conference MVP and was a two-time all-conference honoree. In 2006 he was a first-team ABCA Division III All-Central Region pick after receiving second-team honors in 2005 and was tabbed as the 2006 National College Baseball Writers Association Division III Central Region Position Player of the Year. He was a three-time CoSIDA academic all-region pick and a two-time first-team CoSIDA Academic All-America® selection. Duerfeldt was also named the Woody Hayes Division III Men’s National Scholar-Athlete of the Year and the Duane Schroeder Iowa Conference Male Athlete of the Year. On campus, he received the Travis Sterling Strength and Conditioning Award in 2006.

Graduating from Central with a 3.88 grade point average and a chemistry major, he received the Madison and Lila Self Graduate Fellowship at the University of Kansas where he earned a Ph.D. degree in medicinal chemistry. He was a postdoctoral research associate at The Scripps Research Institute in California from 2011-14, serving as an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellow from 2012-14. Duerfeldt then was named an Assistant Professor at the University of Oklahoma, where he conducted research from 2014-21. He was a Distinguished Faculty Fellow there from 2016-19.

In 2021 he accepted his current post as Associate Professor of medicinal chemistry at the University of Minnesota. In 2018, Duerfeldt also co-founded Excitant Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical start-up dedicated to the development of non-invasive therapies for ophthalmic diseases.

Janke a multi-event, multi-sport star—Janke was a three-time all-American heptathlete but also made the national stage in volleyball.

After finishing eighth in the NCAA Division III heptathlon in 2002 and sixth in 2003, Janke climbed to second on the podium in 2004 with 4,835 points, standing next to her twin sister, Raegan Schultz Wagner, who captured the title as Central finished 14th in the national team standings. Janke was also a national indoor meet qualifier in the long jump and an outdoor qualifier in the javelin.

Wagner was inducted into Central’s Athletics Hall of Honor in 2019, making she and Janke the third pair of siblings in the hall. Football running backs Rich Kacmarynski and Mark Kacmarynski were inducted in 2011 and 2013, respectively. Football and track and field standouts Kevin Sanger and Rick Sanger were inducted in 2011 and 2014, respectively.

Originally from Barnum, Iowa, Janke took the 2004 Iowa Conference heptathlon crown with a then-record 4,813 points and was a 17-time conference placewinner, placing five times in the 2004 outdoor championships and four times in the indoor meet. She also took league titles in the 2004 outdoor 100-meter hurdles and the 2003 indoor long jump. She was twice named the league’s female athlete of the week and helped set school records in the javelin and the shuttle hurdle relay.

The 2004 team MVP and a team co-captain, Janke was a three-time academic all-conference honoree in both track and field and volleyball.

As a freshman reserve, Janke was a member of Central’s 2000 NCAA Division III champion volleyball squad and participated in the 2001 and 2003 NCAA tournaments as the Dutch won league championships in each of her four seasons. A three-time letterwinner, Janke received the team’s Most Improved Player Award in 2003.

Janke serves as a Senior Financing Consultant for Principal Real Estate Investors, a division of Principal Global Investors, in Des Moines, where she has worked since graduation. She was involved in a variety of service and religious activities while at Central and is now a member of the college’s EAM Advisory Council for economics, accounting and business management students. She remains active in women’s ministry and the AWANA program at her current church and coaches a local club volleyball team. Since 2008 she’s been a board member of the Iowa 4-H State Equine Advisory Committee and an executive board member and treasurer for the Iowa Associated Saddle Club since 2009.

Softball stardom leads to coaching career for Van Wetzinga—A 2001 NFCA Division III first-team all-America pick after receiving second-team honors in 2000 and a four-time all-region honoree, Van Wetzinga was selected for the 2001 NFCA Division III Catcher of the Year Award.

She helped lead Central to four NCAA tournament berths and was a team co-captain for the 2001 squad which finished second in the national finals. The Dutch also won the 2000 conference crown and Van Wetzinga was a three-time all-league pick.

Central’s 2001 LeRoy Timmer MVP Award winner, Van Wetzinga batted .381 in 51 games with 56 hits, 14 doubles, three homers and 32 RBIs. She sparkled even brighter behind the plate with 53 assists. She hit .351 for her career with 184 hits, tying her for ninth place on Central’s all-time list and played in 190 games, which ranks third. She had 40 doubles, two triples, 11 homers and 261 RBIs along with a .966 fielding percentage, recording 783 putouts and 159 assists.

Following graduation, Van Wetzinga served as a coach with her brother, Rusty, at Pleasant Valley High School where they helped the team win a pair of conference titles and made the school’s first state tourney appearance in 2005, placing third. They coached four players who later starred at Central. Van Wetzinga was an assistant at St. Ambrose University for a year then spent two seasons as a graduate assistant at Indiana State University, where she received a master’s degree in 2007. She was head coach at Colorado School of Mines from 2008-10, leading the squad to the 2008 conference title and an NCAA Division II tournament berth in 2009. spent 2011-13 as coach at Upper Iowa University. She took the Peacocks from 6-41 in 2011 to 28-16 in 2013, then took on her present post at Metropolitan State University of Denver in 2014.

Van Wetzinga has guided MSU Denver to three NCAA Division II tourney appearances and one conference title, with a 38-22 record this past season. She’s posted a 296-161 record at MSU Denver and has a 449-317 overall mark.