Victoria Heiser-Whatley Earns All-American Status At Nationals

The Columbia College track & field team sent 3 athletes to the 2020 NAIA Indoor Track & Field National Championships over the weekend. The meet took place from March 5-7 on the campus of South Dakota State University. This is the most number of qualifiers that Columbia College track & field has ever sent to the national meet.

 The 3 koalas making the trip to South Dakota were freshmen Victoria and Jessica Heiser-Whatley, and sophomore Shelby Winn. These same 3 koalas swept the 3000m racewalk at the 2020 Appalachian Athletic Conference championship, which was also a first in program history.

 Victoria led the Koalas with a 6th place finish in 15:10.00 which earned her All-American status. Victoria is only the 2nd koala in Columbia College's indoor track & field history to earn that honor. Victoria's time was also her fastest performance of this indoor track & field season.

 Jessica finished in 9th place, just missing All-American status by 1 place. Her time of 15:55.89 was her 2nd fastest performance of the season. Both Victoria and Jessica were the only freshmen that competed in this field of 16 athletes.

 Shelby Winn finished in 13th place with a time of 17:23.64 which is a lifetime personal best for her. Shelby has only been competing in racewalk for a little over a year, and already has an AAC championship and national qualifying race under her belt.

 Collectively as a team, Columbia College finished in 45th place in the team scoring. The koala's first outdoor meet of the year will be March 20-21 at Columbia International.