DULUTH, Minn. – Four Menomonie High School graduates are competing in track and field this season on the shores of Lake Superior. Nolan Bien, Isabella Whitwam and Helen Chen are competing for the University of Minnesota-Duluth and Kieran Bignell is competing at UW-Superior. All four are in their first year of competing collegiately in track and field.
Bien started off his collegiate career with a bang in a three-team meet at the College of St. Scholastica Opener last month and picked up a pair of first place finishes. Bien took the top spot in the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 8.39 seconds and was a member of the 4×400-meter relay that topped the field in a time of 3-minutes, 28.48-seconds. Bien opened in the 60-hurdles preliminary with a top time of 8.50 seconds.
Last spring Bien captured both the 110- and 300-meter hurdles at the WIAA regionals and sectionals, setting a school record at the sectional meet. At the WIAA state championship, Bien captured two top five finishes in the hurdle events, placing third in the 110-hurdles in a time of 14.51 seconds and was fifth in the 300-hurdles in a time of 38.70 seconds.
Chen opens up her collegiate track and field career after three years as a member of the Bulldogs’ women’s basketball team and is competing as a distance runner. Chen finished seventh in the 3000-meter run as Duluth took the top seven places at St. Scholastica. Chen clocked a time of 12-minutes, 2.59-seconds. Chen was a member of both the Menomonie High School cross country and track and field teams. She currently posts the 14th best time for the MHS cross country team in the 5000-meter, marking a time of 19-minutes, 36-seconds she posted in 2021. Chen played in 31 games for the Duluth basketball team.
Whitwam, who took third at the WIAA regionals and fifth at the WIAA sectionals last spring in the pole vault, opened her collegiate career in the event, but did not place. Whitwam was the Bulldogs’ lone women’s pole vaulter to compete.
Bignell and his Yellowjacket teammates also competed at the St. Scholastica meet. Bignell was seventh in the 400-meter run in a time of 59.45 seconds and was 20th in the 60-meter dash (7.90 seconds).
The Bulldogs and the Yellowjackets return to action Saturday, Jan. 17 at the Twin Ports Open at UW-Superior.
Layne Pitt is the retired UW-Stout sports information director and also worked more than a decade at The Dunn County News.
Menomonie Collegians is a regular feature of Menomonie News Net. The column is not limited to student-athletes, but may be a former Menomonie area student in a play, forensics, music or any type of collegiate competition. If you know of a Menomonie Collegian, please email [email protected].
The column Menomonie Collegians by Layne Pitt is licensed under a CC BY SA 4.0 International license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
