Only four people continue to show up for Ball State track and field practices at the Briner Sports Complex in mid-May.

The four – head coach Brian Etelman, assistant coach Stephen Krupa, sophomore Regan Lewis and sophomore Peyton Stewart – are preparing for the upcoming NCAA East Preliminary Round at the University of Kentucky on May 25-27.

Both sophomores earned spots in the preliminary round, Stewart becoming the first Ball State sprinter to compete since 2010 and Lewis being the first field athlete to qualify since 2015, after their first-place individual performances at this year’s Mid-American Conference championships.

“I think the regional format as it is right now is only like 6 or 7 years old … in that period we had one person make it,” Etelman said. “To have two in one year kind of shows the growth of the program so it’s really exciting. Honestly, I think if we were a little healthier we’d have two or three more.”

This week, Lewis and Stewart will be facing off against some of the country’s best competition. Athletes representing Power 5 conferences like the Southeastern Conference, who have won six out of the last eight women’s outdoor track and field national championships, will all be in attendance.

While the Cardinals didn’t qualify as a team, both coaches agree that qualifying two athletes as a team is a testament on how the Ball State track and field program is continuing it's improvement under its second season underneath a new coaching staff.

“I think it just speaks volumes to how hard these guys can work,” Krupa said. “It’s a unique situation, but it’s a situation that we [Etelman and myself] were both prepared for.”

Both coaches have track and field backgrounds that has proven valuable as the two women prepare for the preliminary round. Etelman was a two-time All-American sprinter at the University of Georgia and Krupa who was a six-time Atlantic Sun All-Conference high jumper at North Florida.

Moving into the competition this weekend, Etelman says he doesn’t know what to expect, but he’s confident in both Lewis’ and Stewarts’ abilities moving forward.

“I feel like I should be nervous, I’m just not,” Etelman said. “We’ve already done our jobs, everything else is just icing on the cake at this point.”

But after this week's competition and looking into next season, he said it’ll be a different conversation saying that winning is ”going to be the standard.”

“I think when things are moving forward, it takes the edge off a little bit and makes you realize that we can do this,” Etelman said. “Hopefully everybody else can see and understand that we are and we can. … Now we want more.”

Regan Lewis

Entering the MAC Outdoor Championships, Krupa wasn’t sure how Lewis would perform.

The week before the competition, the two didn't do very much preparation because Lewis had a cold the entire week. 

“I didn’t think she was going to win it and she made it her sole goal to prove me wrong,” Krupa said. “The bigger the meet, the higher the competition, the better she’s going to do.”

Even after hitting her 1.82m high jump in the finals of the MAC Outdoor Championships, Lewis was still nervous.

She knew she had to wait for Akron senior Nikki Manson, the same jumper who took gold over her in the MAC Indoor Championships just 3 months early, to complete her final jump.

“I wasn’t super excited right away because she had another jump left,” Lewis said. “I was happy, but I had to wait for a little bit so it was kind of nerve-wracking.”

But after the original nerves passed, Lewis soon realized that her jump was good enough to win not only the MAC, but tie her for seventh in the region, putting her among some of the best to qualify for the East Prelims.

In the past year alone, Lewis jumps have increased by .2m. Since coming to college, she has worked alongside Krupa, who continues to use some of the advice that he took from his father Greg Krupa, assistant coach at the University of North Florida.

“My father, being the jumps coach where I went, has produced far better athletes than I ever was,” Stephen Krupa said. “I never did what [Lewis and Stewart] have accomplished, but I was around those athletes and giving them advice.”

Krupa’s father has sent several athletes to the NCAA East Prelims and coached a US Olympic Trial qualifier.

For Lewis, however, making the prelims isn’t enough – her goal is to move onto the NCAA Division l Outdoor Track and Field Championships and her coaches think she has a legitimate chance to do so.

“I’m excited, I think Regan has a good shot at going down to nationals, probably one of the best shots we’ve had since 2004, so it’ll be huge,” Krupa said. “I’d never count her out that’s for sure.”

In order for Lewis to qualify for the National Competition, she must land a spot in the top-12 competitors in the Preliminary round of the women’s high jump. Unlike other competitions, there is no final for the high jump, the top-12 from both the East and West Regional competitions move onto Nationals.

Peyton Stewart

While Lewis knew that she qualified for the prelims after the conference championships, it was a different story for Stewart.

Stewart, who ran a conference-best 11.55 in the 100m dash, originally wasn’t on the 48-women qualifying list, she was No. 55. She had to wait for the official list, which included coach’s scratches, to be released on May 18.

Etelman knew she qualified the day before, but just to be safe, he waited until the official list was released to the country before telling Stewart that she qualified.

“I was so nervous, I didn’t know if I was going to get in,” Stewart said. “But coach kept telling me I was going to get in so I was just trusting him. I was really excited [I got in], I’m just ready to see how it goes, it’s just going to be a good experience.”

While Etelman didn’t want to believe it before it was official, he said he would’ve been surprised if Stewart didn’t make it.

Last year, the slowest time to qualify for the East Preliminary round for the women’s 100m was an 11.64 and in 2015, it was an 11.61 – both slower than Stewarts time.

“I have a spreadsheet of the past 6 years, this year was the fastest year ever,” Etelman said. “In the past, 11.55 is in without scratches. It’s good, just next year, she’ll probably have to run a little faster.”

Still, Stewart, much like Lewis, is preparing to see some of the best competition the country has to offer.

“She’s going to see Olympians, National Champions, the best kids in the world really,” Etelman said. “The conversation has been, if she can just execute, get a really good race and run fast without winning [the prelims] … she’ll have a shot at making the Regional Final on Friday.

“Anything after that is just a bonus.”

Moving through the preliminary competition, Stewart must place in the top 3 from her heat in both the preliminary and semifinal rounds in order to make the NCAA East Preliminary Finals. From there, she must land one of the top-24 times in the country to advance to the NCAA Division l Track and Field Finals.

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