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St. Marys' Ely McNeal, who graduated this spring, signed a national letter of intent Wednesday to run track at Mount Vernon Nazarene. Seated with him from left are his girlfriend, Kelsey Poppe, St. Marys assistant coach Seth Vorhees and head coach Nick Page.
Ely McNeal, who graduated from St. Marys this spring, signed Wednesday to run track at Mount Vernon Nazarene University.
McNeal, who made it to the Division II state championships in the 110-meter hurdles, said MVNU got in touch after the St. Marys college fair.
"They reached out to me and said, 'One in every five students is an athlete, so you're not going to be the only student-athlete,' " he said. "Then the student-to-faculty ratio is really nice as well, and the track coach kept in touch with me all throughout the season."
Mount Vernon's head track coach of the past five years, Ellis Gallion, stepped down on July 10, but McNeal said the new coach told him his offer remained intact.
At St. Marys, McNeal played sparingly at safety during football season, and in track, he ran the 110 and 300 hurdles and the 4x100 and 4x200 relays in addition to competing in long jump. He plans to continue the 110 hurdles and consult long jump and sprint coaches to see if his marks will allow him to keep going in those events, competing in both indoor and outdoor seasons.
"I was thinking about trying out for the 400 hurdles," he said, "but it adds an extra 100 meters onto the high school, so it would be quite a challenge to overcome."
McNeal started running track in seventh grade, when he made it to the state championships on the Roughriders' 4x400 team. He picked up hurdles as a sophomore, and this past year he ran indoor track this past offseason, competing in the long jump as well as the 60-meter dash and hurdles.
In spring, he hit a PR in long jump at the Western Buckeye League championships, reaching 20 feet, five inches. He said he dropped four seconds off his hurdles time as a senior, peaking at district as he finished in 14.91 seconds to win the 110 hurdles district title.
"I had really good coaching throughout the year," he said. "They helped me just keep my head straight. They taught me the techniques and little things I needed to tweak and fix to shave off the little seconds or get the extra three inches that I needed."
McNeal didn't run the 300 hurdles in the tournament and didn't make it out of district in the long jump, but in the 110 hurdles, he followed up his district win by placing fourth at regionals, securing an automatic spot to state in Dayton.
His season ended in the preliminaries, where he finished 14th with a time of 15.38 seconds.
"My proudest accomplishment is making it all the way, running the season all the way to the very last week of the season by making it to state," he said. "I made my season last as long as it possibly could."
McNeal also considered Wilmington, Marietta and Indiana Wesleyan. He plans to major in sports management.
Mount Vernon Nazarene was second at the Crossroads League indoor championships and went to the NAIA indoor nationals, where it finished 29th. In the outdoor season, the Cougars were third at the Crossroads League championships and finished 69th at NAIA nationals.
