By: Jacob Oyler: Athletic Communications Director
The triumphs and agony of sports were on full display for the Saints men's track and field athletes during their events at the 2025 NCAA Division III Indoor Track and Field National Championships. The Saints walked away with some hardware in a two day frenzy that saw multiple events come down to the wire as the nation's best squared off against one another.
Trent Beseth (Stanchfield, Minn./Cambridge-Isanti HS) put the capstone on what has been an incredible indoor track and field season with a 2nd place finish in the shot put that saw him pick up his second All-American award after finishing seventh in the shot put during the 2024 Outdoor Track and Field National Championships. It was a crazy mix of emotions for Beseth as he went back in forth with the best throwers in the country to claim his silver medal in the event. On his first throw of the event, Beseth launched a throw of 17.38m that had him sitting in fourth place at the time. He moved up a spot to third place after his second throw landed 17.62m from his hand.
For those unfamiliar with how throwing events work in track and field, there are typically three throws in the qualifying round, and the top 8-10 throwers after the preliminary round qualify for the finals where they have three more throws. The furthest distance does not reset between the prelims and the finals. Instead the finals give the throwers three more opportunities to try to improve on their furthest distance thrown up to that point. However, often to build anticipation, the finals work in reverse order where the thrower who had the shortest distance in the prelims will throw first and that order will continue until the leader through prelims throws last.
Through the qualifying round Adam Strouf from Wis.-Eau Claire was leading the field with a distance of 18.16m until the fifth throw of the event for Beseth, where he momentarily took the lead with a new personal record and school record of 18.30m. Unfortunately for all the Saints faithful, this lead would be short lived because Strouf retook the lead moments later with a distance of 18.35m. Both Strouf and Beseth had a sixth and final throw to try to claim victory as their own, but Beseth recorded a scratch on his last gasp and walked away with the silver medal, missing the national championship by a mere five centimeters. To put that into perspective, that 5cm is less than the width of the phone screen many of you are reading this on right now! Beseth concludes this indoor track and field season with five MIAC Field Athlete of the Week awards, MIAC Field Athlete of the Year honors, two MIAC All-Conference awards, and now a second place finish in the nation in the shot put.
Meanwhile,
Calvin Boone (St. Paul, Minn./St. Paul Highland Park HS) finished 14th in the mile preliminary round with a time of 4:13.86. This time saw Boone finish less than a second behind some of the qualifiers for the finals in the event, but Boone got an unlucky draw and was placed into the heat that had a final qualifying time of 4:10.86 versus 4:13.25. The top four runners from each head auto qualified for the finals with the next two fastest times overall filling out the ten person final round.
Lars Dewall was one of the final athletes to compete at the national championships, finishing the 3,000m in a time of 8:31.00 that earned him a 18th place finish. Dewall found himself in a very competitive field and moved to as high as 11th place with 1,000m to go in the event, but ultimately landed in that 18th position.
The eight team points picked up by Beseth in the shot put saw the Saints finish in an eight-way for 25th place in the team results, with Wisconsin-La Crosse taking home the men's team time with 84 points.
The Saints look to take this momentum into the outdoor season that starts on March 29th at the Optimistic Open.
See the full results for nationals
here
#SaintsRiseUp
