Carmel IN Has Gone From A Distance Power To A Full-Fledged Track And Field Champion

By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor

When Ken Browner took over the head coaching duties for track and field at Carmel High in Indiana 11 years ago, he inherited a program built on distance runners. 

Carmel is a huge school, with more than 5,200 students, and the average track team is 251 athletes. 

Browner immediately saw holes to fill and began to work on building a complete team capable of winning the Indiana state championship. 

"When I first took this job 11 years ago, Carmel High School had only won one state championship in the history of the school," Browner said. "It was a distance school. They didn't believe in anything else on the track. I had to convince them that there were 12 other events on the track besides (distance) that we needed to accomplish. Over time they bought in. It's been a great run to build this program into what it's become."

This spring, re-emerging after the lost 2020 season due to COVID-19, the track team at Carmel was focused and ready. 

School administrators required Browner to trim the number of athletes and there were 100 fewer than usual on the 2021 team. 

But practices felt like meets, and small meets felt like championships. 

"Not having my junior season increased my motivation for our senior year," senior Owen Schafer said. "It made me want everything, not just in meets, but in practices too. The competition we had in practice was crazy. It felt like a meet in some of our workouts."

Schafer was locked into his goals. He won the Indiana state titles in the 400 meters and was also on the winning 4x400 relay as the Greyhounds won their fourth boys state title in seven years. 

Coming back from the COVID year, this spring's run to a title, and ultimately a DyeStat Dual Meet National Championship, was special. 

"The last year showed that something could really be taken away from you," Browner said. "It seemed like every practice and every meet, they treated it like it was the last event they would every compete in, and that was kind of the theme from that point on. I've never had a group of guys consistently work as hard as they did."

Carmel's sprinters and hurdlers and field event athletes all contributed, and the distance group remains one of the best in the country as well. 

Sophomore Kole Mathison and senior Jacob Fisher showed that by going 2-3 in the 3,200 meters at the state meet and the 4x800 relay group was ranked US#5 with 7:44.83. 

"To have a track season this spring was truly a blessing," Mathison said. "It made it that much more competitive for us and we wanted to prove what we could do (after missing 2020)."

Carmel's 2021 group broke school records in the 4x100, 110-meter hurdles and 300-meter hurdles (Zachary Cox). 

"This season felt a lot different," Cox said. "We didn't have a junior year and my senior year was my last year, so there was more urgency. It felt better that your hard work from junior year training was finally paying off."

ZOOM INTERVIEW WITH CARMEL COACH KEN BROWNER AND ATHLETES OWEN SCHAFER, ZACH COX AND KOLE MATHISON

First-round results:  BOYS | GIRLS

Second-round results:  BOYS | GIRLS

Regional semifinal results:  BOYS | GIRLS

Regional final results:  BOYS | GIRLS

TOURNAMENT BRACKETS

DUAL MEET CHAMPIONSHIP FINALS

Carmel IN 75.50, Century ND 56.50

Carmel High of Indiana added a dual meet national championship to its sparkling state championship run in the Hoosier State.

Two years after Hopkins of MN won the 2019 title and brought the championship out of the south for the first time, the Greyhounds kept it in the upper Midwest with a team that filled all the boxes, especially in the distance events, hurdles and relays.

Against Century of Bismarck, N.D., one of the bullies of the boys tournament, the Greyhounds gained separation due to three relay wins – sweeping the 4x100, 4x400 and 4x800 for a 15-0 advantage.

Sophomore Kole Mathison, one of the top young runners in the country, also did his part by contributing three wins in the 800, 1,600 and 3,200 plus powering the 4x800 relay. When you play a meet on paper, there is no accounting for the fatigue of what might occur in a single day. Mathison season bests all got the credit that they deserve.

The hurdle events also played pivotal roles for Carmel, which broke up the dominance that Century displayed against teams earlier in the tournament. Zachary Cox, who will attend Idaho State in the fall, won the 110-meter hurdles for Carmel and pushed Century's talented Brock Johnsen and Clay Radenz back to second and thrid. 

In the 300 hurdles, it was Cox again in 37.65, ahead of Radenz in 38.40. Carmel's Colton Parker, the Indiana state runner-up, was third in 38.53 and the Patriots' Johnson didn't score with 38.66.

Century's depth in the throws and jumps gave the team a dominant advantage in the field events. And since Indiana doesn't contest the triple jump or the javelin, the Patriots didn't get to extend their flex into those events or this meet would have been even closer. 

There was a three-way tie for third in the boys long jump, at 21-5, with one Carmel and two Century athletes involved. The point was awarded to Century's Ayden Cermak based on his other jumps during the season.

Nolan Ring's victory in the discus and Seth Hutchison's win in the pole vault helped the Greyhounds stay in contact with Carmel until the racing on the track began. 

Meet Results