TEMPE – Four Sun Devils head to the Lone Star State this week to compete for national titles at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Austin, Texas, June 5-8.
At the NCAA Championships, quality goes further than quantity and the quality of the four student-athletes heading to the Texan capital this week hasn't been in doubt all season. All four of the Sun Devils competing in the championships have marks in the top-five of their respective events.
"I think when you look at the women's side with our three entries, they're quality seeds," head coach Greg Kraft said. "In most sports, there are four criteria: are you in the top-25, the top-10, the final four or are you a national champion? I feel comfortable saying that it's a reasonable expectation for our women to have top-25 and top-10 aspirations based on where they're seeded."
Kraft's women's team is going for its third-straight top-10 finish at the NCAA Outdoor Championship, and much like the previous two, ASU's throwers will have the final say on the team's success.
The highest seeded Devil is redshirt-sophomore Beatrice Llano who leads the nation in the women's hammer throw. She opened her season with the No. 7 mark in NCAA history and, though an injury has slowed her down since her opener, the Norwegian record-holder still goes into the meet with a chance to earn her second first-team All-America honor.
Another Devil seeking a second outdoor podium finish will be Samantha Noennig. As a freshman, Noennig finished seventh in the outdoor shot put and heads into this year's meet as one of the favorites to win the whole thing.
She was the indoor national champion in the event back in March, and her outdoor season has seen her match her indoor personal best and win her first Pac-12 title in the shot put.
While the sole men's representative at the Championships, William Paulson has yet to earn a first-team honor outdoors, the Pac-12 1,500-meter champion is among the elites in the nation in the event.
Former NJCAA javelin champion Seri Geisler is looking for her first All-America honor in her first season in maroon and gold. She set the school record back in April and since then has yet to finish worse than third in any competition, including taking second at the Pac-12 Championships and third at the regional meet.
The 2019 NCAA Outdoor Championships are a four-day affair, but the Sun Devils will only have events on the first three days. The complete schedule can be found here or on page five of the meet notes.
Live results will be provided by the NCAA, and the Championships will be broadcast live on the ESPN family of networks as well as online on ESPN3.
Results and a full recap of each day will be available on thesundevils.com following the conclusion of the day's action, and @SunDevilTFXC will have live updates.
Coach's Corner: Greg Kraft on the Championships
On William Paulson's historic season in Tempe
"I think the combination of Will Paulson, coach Cory Leslie and his teammates has been remarkable because they were able to hit the ground running and were on the same page. Typically it's difficult to adjust to a new training regiment, so to say what he's done in this short amount of time is remarkable is actually an understatement on my part. I think it speaks well on Will's willingness to be coached and his ability to communicate, but also on coach Leslie's ability to relate to the men on the team. It couldn't have gone any better for ASU and Will."
On Seri Geisler's comeback season and her ceiling as a thrower
"The one thing that I appreciate about coach Blutreich is that he's never one for false hyperbole. Prior to her injury last year, he was very high on her ceiling as a javelin thrower. He took it personally and hard last year when she got injured. They have worked hard to get to this point and she's still new to this sport. I try not to put a ceiling on athletes and dictate what she's capable of, so I yield to coach Blutreich who says she's ascending, so I believe it – She's ascending."
On coach Brian Blutreich's impact on Beatrice Llano
"Beatrice is a world junior champion, she's the Norwegian record-holder, so when you have an athlete of that stature, it's common for them to want to train under a strong and proven throws coach, and we have that in coach Blutreich. He has such a strong conviction with how things need to be done to succeed and he has the track record to prove it with the Maggie Ewens and the Kaylee Antills and now Beatrice. I think Beatrice, like all champions, puts so much pressure on herself, but I try to remind them that they're really young and in Beatrice's case, she's only a redshirt-sophomore. She has a lot of pride and she expects to win and when she doesn't, I can respect that there's disappointment."
On NCAA champion Samantha Noennig's sophomore season
"Sam is one of those athletes who is easy to take for granted. She's a 4.0 student, she's polite, she's clutch. Sometimes when you're like that, but you're an incredibly pleasant human being on top of that, sometimes as coaches we don't acknowledge how great of a person they are because we just have grown to expect it from them. She's a redshirt-sophomore who has had tremendous growth. She's not physically as imposing as some of her competitors are, so with that, her margin of error is a little less. The one thing that really makes it tick is that coach-athlete relationship and she's had such improvement under coach Blutreich but by his estimation, she still hasn't figured out how to strike the shot the way he knows she can to throw that 60-footer, so we're excited to see her throw this weekend.
On the future of the men's distance program
"When I talk about what coach Blu has done for our program, I see the same impact in what coach Leslie has done for the men's distance group with the development of Will, but also with what he did with John Reniewicki, Fearghal Curtin and even a guy like Adam Meyer this year. When you look at the student-athletes he's recruited on the men's side, he's really rebuilding that program and he's doing it in layers with an outstanding high school class and a mixture of transfers. We'll have another graduate transfer in next year in Alex George from the University of Arkansas. He's done a fabulous job with that and we think he's the coach to help us re-establish our women's roster."
Kraft Stepping into Administrative Role after 2019
After 23 years and one of the most storied tenures in Arizona State history, Sun Devil director of track and field Greg Kraft announced that he will cede head coaching duties to associate head coach Dion Miller and move into an administrative role following the completion of the 2019 season.
With Kraft's new title as associate director of athletics for track and field, Miller will be named director of track and field on July 1, 2019.
A four-time United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) Coach of the Year, and three-time Pac-12 Coach of the Year, Kraft's teams won four NCAA titles and recorded 12 top-four finishes at national championships. At least one Sun Devil has won an NCAA individual title in 13 of the last 16 years, and overall Kraft has seen his student-athletes win 38 national titles, earn 21 Olympic berths and take home more than 300 All-America honors since the Devils' first NCAA appearance under Kraft in 1998.
Miller has seen success at every stop during his career. In his first term with ASU, Miller's sprinters helped the Sun Devils win two Pac-10 titles and the aforementioned NCAA crown in 2007. He then went on to lead the sprints program at his alma mater of Texas Tech and saw the Red Raiders earn a Big 12 outdoor title in 2014. In his final season with Alabama, the Tide men won the program's first SEC indoor title.
As an assistant, Miller has coached his fair share of elite talent, including four Olympians and two IAAF world champions. In his near 20-year career, Miller has coached 137 men and women to All-America status and another 37 to conference crowns in the Big 12 and Pac-10/12.
History in the Making
Samantha Noennig has the chance to become the fourth ASU athlete to sweep the indoor and outdoor shot put titles (Ryan Whiting 2009-10, Jordan Clarke, 2012, Maggie Ewen, 2018)
ASU could become the second school in the 21st century to win back-to-back shot put titles from two different athletes (Ewen, 2018)
If Noennig wins the title and scores 10 points, she'll move into the top-15 in school history in scoring at outdoor championships with 12 points.
No man in ASU history has earned a first-team All-America honor in the 1,500-meter run.
William Paulson can become the first Sun Devil since 2015 to earn an indoor and outdoor first-team All-America honor in the same season.
Only one other woman in ASU history has earned an All-America honor in the javelin (Celeste Wilkinson, 1978).
Sun Devil women going for third-straight top-10 finish. Would be second-longest streak of top-10 places in school history (2006-2009).