CHADRON, Neb. -- March 10, 2020 -- After having terrific success so far this season, two young Chadron State College athletes will compete at the NCAA Division II National Indoor Track and Field Championships in Birmingham, Ala., this weekend.

Sophomore Brodie Roden of Riverton, Wyo., is qualified in the 400 meters and freshman Naishaun Jernigan of Springfield, Mass., will triple jump.  Roden will run in the 400 preliminaries Friday at 4 p.m. and hopefully be among the eight finalists Saturday at 4:50.  Jernigan will triple jump Friday starting at 1 p.m.

Coach Riley Northrup is excited to be taking the two young phenoms to the national showdown. He anticipates they will continue to improve, but notes that both have already demonstrated they are "ready for the big time."

Northrup said Roden has been improving every time he runs and is riding high after winning both the 200- and 400-meter races at the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference's Indoor Championships two weeks ago and being named the Outstanding Male Athlete of the Meet.

"He's pretty excited," Northrup said of Roden, whose late great uncle, Stan Roden, played basketball for the Eagles during the Felix Sanford era in the early 1960s.

The coach noted that as a freshman, Jernigan will undoubtedly be nervous when he competes, but he also has gotten better throughout the season and is capable of doing well.

"This will be the first national meet for both of them," Northrup said. "We'll see how it goes and hope they'll have more to come."

Roden, who, as a senior at Riverton High in May 2018, won all three of the Class 3A sprints at the Wyoming State Meet, had a 400 indoor best of 50.15 seconds as a CSC freshman.  He began this season in January with a time of 49.82 and since then has run the event in 49.01, 48.13, 47.69 and 47.93.

The last mark broke the RMAC Championships record of 48.40 that was set by all-time Chadron State great Joel Duffield in 2006.  After the altitude adjustment was made, Roden's time became 47.39 and is 11th among the 17 qualifiers at nationals.

The fastest mark going to Birmingham belongs to Trevor Bassitt, a junior at Ashland University in Ohio, of 46.33. Four other entries have qualifying marks of under 47 seconds. 

Last year's gold and silver medal winners at the National Indoor Meet, Myles Pringle of Ashland (45.67) and Clark Rachard of Texas A&M-Commerce (45.96), were seniors, but five of the remaining six placewinners from a year ago are qualified again. Neither Bassitt nor Taysean Goodwin, a senior from Emporia State in Kansas, who has the second fastest qualifying time, is among the five.

Last year's third place finisher, Quinton Sansing of West Texas State A&M, is eighth on this year's list, and Brandon Parris of St. Augustine's in North Carolina, who was fourth a year ago, is 17th going into the 2020 championships.

Roden also ran the 200 extremely well during this year's indoor season. He broke Duffield's school record of 21.76 seconds at the South Dakota State Classic in mid-February with a time of 21.59 and won the RMAC 200 in 21.81, but it took 21.40 to qualify for nationals.

Roden is the fifth CSC contestant to win or share the Outstanding Male Athlete Award at the RMAC Indoor Championships.  The others are Duffield in 2006, Lanar Newman in 2010, Damarcus Simpson in both 2015 and 2016 and Javan Lanier in 2018. 

Jernigan is going to nationals with the 13th longest triple jump.  That is his 15.01-meter mark, which translates to 49-feet, 3 inches and reaped the silver medal at the RMAC Meet. It is his career-best and ranks second on the Eagles' all-time chart behind only Isaac Grimes' mark of 51-8 ¼  that earned  the Californian second place at last year's national championships.

Prior to going 49-3 at the conference meet, Jernigan's best triple jump was 46-5 ½ at the Colorado Mines Classic that opened the season in December.

Entries from Lincoln University in Missouri have the top three marks entering this year's nationals.  They belong to Ryan Brown (52-1), David Kizar (51-4 ½) and Salif Main (51-¾).  Each came at the Hoosier Open Meet on Dec. 13.

A freshman last year, Brown was the triple jump gold medalist ahead of Grimes with a mark of 52-6 ½ and Kizan, then a sophomore, was fourth at 51-3 ¾. Main is a freshman this year.

Fourth on this year's list is senior William Ross of Colorado-Colorado Springs, the event winner at this year' RMAC Meet with his career-best of 50-4 ¾.  Three more contestants also have gone more than 50 feet this season.

Chadron State nearly had another triple jumper qualify for nationals.  Freshman Derrick Nwagwu of Aurora, Colo., was third at the RMAC Meet with his career-best of 48-11.  It took 49- ¼ to be one of the 16 qualifiers. 

Jernigan also has the potential to someday qualify for nationals in the long jump. Just as he was the runner-up in the triple jump at the RMAC Meet, he was second in the long jump by going 23-3 ½.

How does someone from Springfield, Mass., get to Chadron State to compete in track and field? Northrup said Jernigan filled out the recruiting form on the CSC website last spring. 

"When I saw he'd triple jumped 47-8 and high jumped 6-2, I went after him pretty hard," the CSC coach said. "We had good conversations about being a track and field athlete in college, and he was excited about having a new experience."

Northrup isn't sure which of the three jumps will eventually be Jernigan's best.  He also qualified for the high jump at the RMAC Meet by clearing 6-4 ½ twice this winter.  While the long jump at the RMAC Championships was on Friday, the triple and high jumps were at the same time Saturday. 

Jernigan chose to complete the triple jump before seeing what was happening in the high jump. When he had clinched the silver medal in the triple, he headed to the high jump pit.  By then the bar was at something like 6-8, but Northrup said his protégé came "pretty close" to going over it. 

"The kid's got talent and he's becoming a pretty good worker," Northrup noted.