With big javelin season, Mitchell native Kellan Odell enjoying breakout freshman campaign at Mount Marty
· Yahoo Sports
May 19—YANKTON, S.D. — From the first throw of his season, Kellan Odell's javelin journey has gone to a new level.
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In that first meet in March, the Mitchell product hit the NAIA national qualifying standard. Now, he's one of a handful of freshmen competing in the national meet this week in the javelin, representing Mount Marty University in the NAIA championships for the first time.
Odell competes on Thursday at the NAIA national outdoor track and field championships in Asheville, North Carolina. The javelin event is at 3:30 p.m. Central time. Odell is seeded 13th out of 25 competitors, with his top throw of the season covering 60.81 meters, or 199 feet, 6 inches, and the top-eight finishers will earn All-America honors.
He is one of six freshmen competing in the national meet, which includes the top thrower from the regular season, Tabor's (Kan.) Koltyn Kaniper, who threw 69.2 meters
"It was really nice to do that. It was pretty awesome, actually," Odell said recently. "I felt like it was a good throw, and I watched it land and threw my hands in the air. That was at 60.5 meters. I started celebrating and hugged my teammates and my coach. It was really just a high-energy moment."
It was a heck of a way to introduce himself to college competition. His first collegiate throw, also in that same meet at Wayne State College in Wayne, Nebraska, set a personal record by four meters. Odell said that's when he realized he was competing on a higher plane.
"He's a hard worker and we're really happy to have him," said MMU assistant track coach Seth Wiebelhaus, who works closely with Odell. "He loves the work of his craft. For that hard work to show up in the first meet, and he set a new personal record in our conference meet, it's been great. We're trying to keep the ball rolling because he has a good chance to be an All-American in his first year, which is basically unheard of."
Because javelin is an outdoor-only sport, Odell worked on it a little in the fall when he got on campus but otherwise left it behind in the indoor season. He felt like he was throwing pretty well but no measurements were taken on practice session throws, so he didn't know exactly what would happen when the season started.
Prior to college, his previous best throw was 54.18 meters (177 feet, 9 inches), which came in June 2025 at the end of his senior year at Mitchell High School. He won three events as a Kernel and was seventh at the 2025 state meet.
Javelin has only been contested at the high school level in South Dakota as a scored event since 2022, putting Odell in the first group of college athletes from the state who had a full high school experience with the event that they are now bringing with them to college.
Odell said having the high school experience has been big and made for a natural transition to throwing in college. He said he thinks he would be 30 or 40 feet further behind where he is now without the high school throws.
"That's a huge advantage to have," Wiebelhaus said. "Most of the time, you had to find previous baseball throwers. Now with javelin experience, he's absolutely ahead of where he would be otherwise. ... I really feel like he has a big throw waiting for him at the national meet."
In addition to javelin, Odell has also picked up the multi-events in college track and field. In outdoor track, that's the decathlon, the 10-event slate that includes the 100-meter dash, 400-meter run, 1,500-meter run, 110-meter hurdles, long jump, high jump, pole vault, discus throw, javelin throw and shot put. Odell finished eighth in the GPAC in the decathlon at the conference meet.
"It's a lot of fun. In high school, I had only done two or three events. Now I'm at the point where I'm learning seven new events and there's been a lot that has come with that," Odell said. "I've been doing track for a long time, so it's a lot of fun to do these events. ... I enjoy the hurdles, that's probably the event I have picked up the best."
Since there's nothing similar in high school, the decathlon is always an adjustment for new college track athletes. Wiebelhaus, who also competed in the decathlon at Mount Marty as an athlete and said he had to learn how to hurdle and throw, said Odell was a quick learner with the new skills.
"When I was recruiting him, I mentioned it to him a little bit. ... He's learning quick," Wiebelhaus said.
Odell, who is studying nursing at Mount Marty, said he's keeping his national meet strategy simple, trying to get his body to 100% and then focus on throwing the best he can in North Carolina. If he does that, he said, he will be content with whatever the final result is. His most recent personal best came at the Great Plains Athletic Conference meet, where he finished second, and Odell said he kept a simple approach that focused on being confident.
"I'm really looking forward to the experience and seeing what I can accomplish and end my season on a strong note," he said.