Women's Track and Field | 06/09/2022
ST. JOSEPH, Minn. – The jump from high school to college track can be a tough one for athletes as they face more experienced competition and add new events to their repertoire. The multi events can be especially tough for first years as athletes compete in up to five events in a single meet.
Someone forgot to tell
Justus Floren that picking up the multis would be a challenge.
In her first season with the College of Saint Benedict track and field team, Floren finished as the MIAC runner-up in the pentathlon and top-five in the heptathlon and – after all that – won a MIAC title and earned two other All-MIAC honors. She scored 37 points for the Bennies between the indoor and outdoor conference meets, and moved into the top 10 in program history in six events over the course of the year.
After an impressive first season with the Bennie track and field team, Floren is the 2021-22 CSB Rookie of the Year, the department announced Friday afternoon. She was selected out of a pool of nine nominees from the department's 11 varsity sports teams.
Floren competed in the first pentathlon of her career in her third collegiate meet, and she recorded one of the top-10 scores in program history. She also got a taste of tough competition right away as she went up against Division I and II athletes at the Bison Open – and finished in the top 11 overall and took third amongst Division III competitors.
Her second-ever pentathlon was the MIAC Pentathlon in March – and Floren had clearly worked out in jitters in North Dakota. She finished second with 3,064 points – the seventh-best score in program history, and finished second to earn All-MIAC honors. One day after competing in five different events – and winning two of them – she competed twice more and finished top-eight in both. To go along with her runner-up finish in the pentathlon, she also finished runner-up in the high jump and seventh in the long jump to score 18 points for the Bennies, who finished fifth overall.
During the outdoor season, Floren added the javelin and more running to her routine, and continued to impress. She surpassed the 30-meter mark in the javelin in her second time competing in the event and later won two events at the CSB/SJU Last-Minute Invite. She took fifth at the MIAC Heptathlon, and her score of 3,981 is the seventh-best in CSB history. A week later, she became the first MIAC outdoor high jump champion in program history, and also finished fourth in the long jump and moved into the top 10 in program history in both events.
She scored 19 points at the MIAC Outdoor Championships to help the Bennies finish second as a team – their best finish since 2017.
At the end of her first season with CSB track and field, Floren has one MIAC title and two other All-MIAC honors to her name, along with a pair of All-MIAC Honorable Mention accolades. She is in the top 10 in CSB outdoor history in the long jump, high jump and heptathlon, and moved into the top 10 in program indoor history in the 55 hurdles, high jump and pentathlon.
