Wayne State College head track and field coach Marlon Brink announced today that McKayla Hanson from Cedar Bluffs and Joan Jelimo of Gillette, Wyoming have signed national letters of intent to attend Wayne State College and compete for the Wildcats in 2017-18.
The duo will join eight others - Hanna Lazure of Fort Calhoun, Molly McCartney from Nelson, Sophie Noecker from Hartington, Sabrina Sack of Waverly, McKenzie Scheil from Fairmont, Sarah Stang from Herman, Kenzie Sullivan from Laurens, Iowa and Jadin Wagner from Lawton, Iowa as members of the 2017-18 Wildcat women's recruiting class.
            McKayla Hanson is a three-sport standout (volleyball, basketball and track and field) from Cedar Bluffs High School. She was a four-year letter winner competing in sprints on the track and field team and was a four-year Class D state qualifier in the 400-meter relay. Hanson helped Cedar Bluffs to a second place finish and new school record time of 50.47 seconds as a junior. She also earned an eighth place medal as a freshman and just missed medals the other two years with ninth place finishes. Hanson earned Academic All-State honors in basketball and received the Academic All-Conference Award in 2017 from the Frontier Conference.
            "McKayla will help our team in the sprints and relays areas where we are trying to build our numbers and quality," remarked Brink, "She has had much experience through her high school teams running on some relays that have had good success at the State Meet level. We will try to use her experiences with those to help strengthen our squad."
            Joan Jelimo (pronounced juh-lee-mo) is transferring to Wayne State from Gillette College in Wyoming where she competed in both cross-country and track and field. She helped Gillette College to a sixth place finish at Nationals in 2016 and fifth in 2015. In track and field, Jelimo earned a pair of fifth place finishes at the Region 11 Championships with times of 2:23.15 in the 800-meter run and 5:08.90 in the 1500-meter run.
            "Joan will be an immediate impact to our cross country and distance running squad," said Coach Brink. "She has had good success with her running at Gillette College for two years of cross country and one year of track before they dropped the program. She will be a runner that can help us in the middle and long distances races in track as well."
            Wayne State College is an NCAA Division II school located in Wayne, Nebraska and competes in the 16-team Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference. The Wildcats finished 12^th at the NCAA Division II Outdoor Track and Field Championships last weekend in Florida with 21 points and placed eighth at the 2017 NSIC Outdoor Track and Field Championships with 37 points.  WSC returns all 37 points scored to next year's team.