With the season spanning almost eight months, the Buena Vista University (BVU) men and women’s track and field teams have worked long and hard toward the end of their season. This past weekend, they wrapped up their season with the Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (IIAC) Outdoor Championship meet on the campus of Central College in Pella, Iowa.

This season, the team dynamic was youthful and energetic, according to Head Coach Colton Slack.

“The team knew we had a lot of youth. As a coaching staff we just wanted to see positive progression throughout the year,” said Slack. “That is exactly what happened. When some of our youngsters start to progress we should start to make some pretty loud noise. It will be a fun few years.”

While there is not a regular season record for track and filed, the results of the IIAC Championship meet is the only way to compare the team against conference competition.

This year, the men finished 7th Indoor and 8th Outdoor, while the women finished 8th indoor and 9th Outdoor.

Throughout the season, the team performed well in their respective races.

“We had two school records on the season and a handful of student-athletes land on the BVU Top-10 all-time lists. We also had a conference champion high jumper and several IIAC place finishers, so I’m proud of what they’ve done,” said Slack.

Assistant Coach Scott Anderson agrees.

“I thought the team did well throughout the season. Everyone showed steady improvements in their races with new Personal Record’s and break through races,” said Anderson.

Looking back on the season, the coaches feel that the team did well, despite having a smaller and younger group.

“I believe the team did a great job pulling together and fighting for each other. There will be another new dynamic next year with a new group but the team grew a lot this season,” said Slack.

“They all grew collectively as a group. Taking care of the workouts and each other. We all have strengths and weaknesses and they did a good job helping each other out through all of that,” added Anderson. “They all seemed to buy into the process of training and hopefully are starting to see that with hard workout they all can drop a lot of time off their races.”

Overall, the season was filled with positive moments and leaves the team in a good spot for next year, providing they work hard in the offseason.

“Although we didn’t finish as high as we expected in the conference, the team give it their all. As long as they chose to work hard this offseason and lift, condition and stay motivated, we will be okay,” said Slack.

Next year’s goals are geared towards improvements in fitness.

“We will obviously be looking at time, but also place in the conference meet. Last year we finished pretty far down on the conference list so I think a big goal for everyone will be to improve on our place as a team,” said Anderson.

The Beavers finished strong, and look to improve upon this year’s performance by placing higher at conference and hopefully sending some athletes to the national meet.

As of right now, there are no national qualifiers on the team, but a last chance meet coming up will be an opportunity for a small part of the team to improve their current marks and finish the season on a high note.