NEW ORLEANS, La. -- Three Montana Tech track & field student-athletes landed indoor All-America honors from the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association, the organization announced this week.
Graduate student
Abby Clark and seniors
Cade VanVleet and
Jadyn Vermillion all earned the honors, which were based on their top-eight finishes at the NAIA national championship meet last week in Gainesville, Fla.
VanVleet won the men's shot put title, the first national championship in the history of Montana Tech men's track & field. The senior from Noxon threw the shot 17.73 meters, his second-longest toss of the season, to win the title. It's the fourth-career All-America designation for VanVleet, who was runner-up in the shot put last indoor season and discus last outdoor season. He was seventh in the outdoor shot put in 2024.
Clark collected her sixth-career All-America title after finishing third in the pentathlon. Her career-best score of 3,609 bested her own program record in the multi. It was the Fort Benton native's third-career pentathlon All-America award in the indoor season to go with three outdoors in the heptathlon. Her third-place finish was the best-ever for an Oredigger athlete in a combined event.
Vermillion also won third place en route to her second-straight indoor All-America honor in the long jump. The senior from Myrtle Creek, Ore. native leapt 5.78m for her career-best nationals performance. She finished the year with the top mark in the NAIA in the event, a program-record 6.08m bound set October 7.
Montana Tech's three All-Americans in the 2025-26 indoor campaign were tied for the program's most in a single season, indoor or outdoor.
The Orediggers will take a short break before ramping up for the outdoor season, which they'll begin Saturday, March 21 in Billings at the Yellowjackets/Battlin' Bears Open, co-hosted by MSU-Billings and Rocky Mountain at Lockwood High School.
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