UJ track athletes set personal bests at NSIC Championships

Twelve personal bests gave the University of Jamestown track and field team a clear measure of progress at the NSIC Championships, even as the Jimmies are still learning how to score in one of Division II’s tougher leagues.

At Minnesota State University Mankato in late February, Jamestown’s men finished 12th with nine points and the women were 13th with eight. The placements showed how much ground the program still has to cover, but the performances also showed why the move into the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference matters to Stutsman County: the Jimmies are no longer chasing small goals, they are being tested against the kind of competition that shapes championship programs.

A few names stood out in that step up. Ashton Judge gave the men one of their strongest field results, finishing second in the long jump. Jobe Rystedt added an eighth-place finish in the shot put, and on the women’s side Lydia Franson placed sixth in the mile while Brenna Held finished fourth in the shot put. Around those marks, 12 athletes from the Jamestown roster turned in personal bests, a sign that the team’s training is producing real gains as the season tightens.

That progress carries extra weight because the University of Jamestown is in the middle of a major transition. The school was accepted as a full-time NSIC member on Nov. 21, 2023, said it would become official in the league on July 1, 2025, pending NCAA Division II acceptance, and later received approval for Division II membership on July 11, 2024. UJ said the change would begin in the 2025-26 academic year and would put the Jimmies in 17 of the NSIC’s 18 sponsored sports.

The conference itself is a demanding place to build. Jamestown noted that the NSIC has claimed 25 national championships since its founding in 1992, a number that helps explain why personal bests at a championship meet are more than cosmetic improvements. They are evidence that athletes from Jamestown can keep closing the gap, one mark at a time, against a field that stretches across Minnesota, North Dakota and the Upper Midwest.

For the Jimmies, the championship results were not about a sudden leap to the top of the standings. They were about proof that the program is moving forward in a higher-level league, with local athletes like Judge, Franson, Rystedt and Held helping set the pace for what comes next.