MANHATTAN, Kan. – Kansas State head coach Jason Mansfield announced the promotion of Fletcher Larsen to director of volleyball operations Tuesday morning.
 
Larsen, who enters his fourth season on the coaching staff, was elevated to director of volleyball operations after spending the past three seasons as a student manager for the Wildcats.
 
“We are so excited to have Fletcher as our director of volleyball operations,” Mansfield said. “He’s put so much into this program the last three years as a manager, and his dedication, hard work and loyalty are exactly the qualities we want in this program.”
 
As the director of volleyball operations, Larsen will lead the program’s day-to-day operations and recruiting efforts, manage team travel and summer camps, and assist with video and analytics.
 
“He’s become really good at analytics in a very short period of time and will continue to help us with statistics in practice, scouting and matches. His attention to detail and organization will be key in day-to-day activities as well as travel during the fall. He was very fortunate to have a great mentor in Quinn Roche and I think this will be a seamless transition,” added Mansfield. 
 
Larsen steps into the role previously held by Roche, who accepted a position at the University of Colorado this spring.
 
“I couldn’t be more excited to officially join the K-State Volleyball staff,” said Larsen. “Over the past three and a half years, I’ve had the chance to be part of something that’s given me incredible opportunities and allowed me to grow in ways I never imagined. I’ve been fortunate to work with so many great people and witness the evolution of the team through each season.
 
I’m looking forward to continuing to support this program and doing everything I can to help make Manhattan a destination for top-level Division I volleyball. I’m grateful for the relationships I’ve built across the team and the university, and I’m excited to keep building on that foundation in this new role.”

During his time as a student manager, Larsen contributed to 41 team victories, including a program-record five wins over top-25 opponents in 2023. His responsibilities included scouting preparation, data analytics, recruiting visit coordination and camp operations.

A native of Valentine, Nebraska, Larsen graduated from K-State with a degree in agriculture technology management in 2025.

A planning document that’s going to guide the city’s Parks and Recreation Commission activities in the coming year ought to emphasize skateboarding, surfing and beach volleyball, Encinitas City Council members said Wednesday.

Those sports are top draws for Encinitas, and thus they ought to be prime elements in the commission’s annual work plan, but they’re not mentioned in this document, Councilmember Jim O’Hara said.

Given that the 2028 Olympics, which is being held in Los Angeles, will feature a surfing competition at Trestles Beach in San Diego County, there’s even more of a reason to emphasize these sports right now, several council members said.

Among other things, the parks commission ought to be looking into a Moonlight Beach skate bowl proposal that was put forward by a group last summer, said O’Hara, who was elected to the council in November. Don’t make this a primary focus, but do look into the idea at bit more, he said.

Russ Ridder, the chair of the parks commission, told the council that the seven-member, city-sponsored commission was quite willing to expand its proposed goals for the coming year to include the council’s new suggestions. He said the commission picks its annual goals based on community requests — that’s why an item about pickleball courts is included, he said.

He added that he personally thinks there’s a shortage of beach volleyball courts, but it isn’t something that people have asked the commission to look into. And, commissioners haven’t heard anything more about the skate bowl proposal in months, he said.

O’Hara told him that the commission shouldn’t be waiting for residents to ask for new programs or improvements to the parks, saying, “We don’t need someone to come to us to tell us something (about a need) we know is in our community.”

Encinitas has a number of citizen advisory committees that review various topics and draft recommendations to present to the City Council. The Parks and Recreation Commission offers advice to the council on public parks, recreational facilities and community services, including reviewing proposals to acquire park lands or build playgrounds. Last fiscal year, the commission participated in the city’s Holiday Parade, Movies in the Park, Cyclovia, Art Nights and Spring Egg Hunt events.

The goals in its work plan for the coming year include:

• Supporting the installation of adult fitness equipment at Orpheus and Glen parks, among other locations;
• Monitoring tennis and pickleball court use in the city and issuing recommendations on any proposed changes;
• Assisting with the updating of city trail maps;
• Advising the city on naming and possible uses for a recently purchased, coastal property on the northeast corner of Highway 101 and La Costa Avenue;
• Reviewing the feasibility of adding a pollinator garden at the Pacific View Arts Center.

Three skateboarders — all in their 60s — made a pitch for the skate bowl project at a city Parks and Recreation Commission meeting in August. Putting a skate bowl at Moonlight Beach would celebrate the city’s history as a skateboarding Mecca, they said, adding that the beach location would make a fabulous photographic background for skating events.

“This is going to be the most photographed spot in Southern California, I would guess,” project proponent Barry Blumenthal said at the time.

The chair of the parks commission told them that he could definitely see how the proposed bowl would be a “photographer’s dream,” but said the project would face many challenges, including drainage issues, beach parking shortages and permitting difficulties. Moonlight Beach is maintained by the city, but owned by the state, he noted.

Originally Published: May 27, 2025 at 6:07 AM PDT

UNI track & field at NCAA West Preliminary Meet

• May 28-31, 2025
• 2:30 p.m. / 6 p.m. / 7:05 p.m. / 3:30 p.m. CT
• E.B. Cushing Stadium | College Station, Tex.
• WATCH (ESPN+)
• LIVE RESULTS

 

CEDAR FALLS, Iowa — Postseason track and field continues this week for the UNI Panthers as 15 athletes look to continue their season, competing at the NCAA West Preliminary Meet in nine events in College Station, Texas beginning on Wednesday.

Live coverage of the meet can be followed on ESPN+. The full schedule of competing Panther athletes is listed below.

The NCAA Preliminary Meets serve as the first round site for the national postseason meet, which will be held in Eugene, Oregon at Hayward Field, June 11-14. The two preliminary meets this year will be held in College Station, Texas, hosted by Texas A&M University, and Jacksonville, Florida, hosted by the University of North Florida.

To qualify for the preliminary meets, athletes must rank in the top-48 in an individual event and top-24 for relays in their respective regions. Athletes competing in multi-event competitions (heptathlon and decathlon) will not compete at the preliminary site as the top-24 ranked competitors in the nation will automatically qualify for competition in Eugene. Top-12 finishers at the preliminary meets will earn qualification to the finals site in Oregon.

Among Northern Iowa’s competitors in action in Texas this week is a quartet of 2025 Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) outdoor champions, including Katie Fare (women’s shot put) and Brendan Safley (men’s pole vault), the Most Outstanding Field Athletes of this year’s conference championships, as well as Justice Miller (men’s javelin) and Carlie Jo Fusco (women’s 400-meter hurdles). 

Fare, a two-time MVC Women’s Field Athlete of the Week honoree this season, led the conference with a 56 foot, 6.5 inch (17.23m) toss in the shot put this year, while Miller led all MVC javelin throwers with a career-best 214 foot, three inch thow. Fusco also led the league in the 400-meter hurdles (58.85) this season.

UNI will also see a trio of men to compete in the shot put, with Carson Lienau, who led the MVC with a career-best 61 foot, 2.75 inch toss this outdoor season, leading the way alongside David Russell and Spencer Kessel. Drake Hanson and Chase Knoche will also make their second NCAA West Preliminary appearance together in the 800 meters, each running under one minute, 49 seconds this year.

Distance standout Emma Hoins will take to the track in the women’s 3,000-meter steeplechase after a runner-up finish at the conference championships in a season where she broke the school record with a time of 10:15.39. Josie Moreland will also make her NCAA West Preliminary debut after a second-place showing at the MVC Championships, recording a career-best mark of five feet, ten inches at the Drake Relays in April.

The Panthers will also see one relay run next week in Texas as Zack Butcher, Hanson, Parker Kiewiet and Jake Bosch run the men’s 4×400-meter relay (Zach Fall and Knoche as alternates). UNI’s qualifying time of 3:06.79 from the Cyclone Twilight ranked second in the MVC this year.

2025 NCAA West Preliminary Meet Schedule

Wednesday, May 28

• 2:30 p.m. CT – Men’s Javelin (First Round) [Miller]
• 5:30 p.m. CT – Men’s Pole Vault (Semifinals) [Safley]
• 6 p.m. CT – Men’s Shot Put (First Round) [Russell, Kessel, Lienau)
• 7:50 p.m. CT – Men’s 800m (First Round) [Hanson, Knoche]

Thursday, May 29

• 6 p.m. CT – Women’s Shot Put (First Round) [Fare]
• 8:20 p.m. CT – Women’s 400m Hurdles (First Round) [Fusco]

Friday, May 30

• 7:05 p.m. CT – Men’s 800m (Quarterfinals)***
• 8:45 p.m. CT – Men’s 4x400m Relay (Quarterfinals) [Butcher, Hanson, Kiewiet, Bosch]

Saturday, May 31

• 3:30 p.m. CT – Women’s High Jump (Semifinal) [Moreland]
• 5:40 p.m. CT – Women’s 3,000m Steeplechase (Quarterfinals) [Hoins]
• 7:25 p.m. CT – Women’s 400m Hurdles (Quarterfinals)***

*** Pending qualification

 

UNI track and field action can be followed all season long on social media on Facebook (UNI Track and Field), X (@UNITrackFieldXC) and on Instagram (@uni_tf_xc). Schedules and rosters, along with the latest Panther news and information can be found online at UNIpanthers.com.

The Oak Park and River Forest High School baseball team clinched a share of the West Suburban Silver championship with a 5-3 victory over Lyons Township, May 22, the program’s first title since 2022.

“This is special,” said OPRF coach Kevin Campbell. “These seniors are the guys I had as freshmen, so seeing them come together, play how they do, and really embrace the team culture has been one of the best coaching experiences I’ve ever had.”

Although technically a road game, it was played at OPRF because of wet field conditions at LT. Peter Farren’s two-run homer in the top of the second gave the Huskies (25-10, 13-5 in WSC Silver) a 2-1 lead. OPRF tacked on three more runs in the third with a two-run double from Ethan Moore and an RBI single from Brady Green.

BERLIN — Berlin formally presented its bid to rehost the Olympics on Tuesday in the same stadium where Jesse Owens starred during the 1936 Games under the Nazis.

Berlin sports minister Iris Spranger said the city wants to put on a sustainable Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2036, 2040 or 2044, making use of existing sports venues.

But her announced plans to include the former airport Tempelhof are likely to be resisted by locals who already opposed any development of the popular city park in a 2014 referendum.

Spranger envisaged beach volleyball at the Brandenburg Gate, and water sports in Grünau, a riverside locality which also staged water sports in 1936.

Otherwise, Spranger gave few details during the presentation, saying the bid was still at concept phase.

“You’ll have to be patient,” she told a journalist.

Berlin’s bid — titled “Berlin+” with support from the states of Brandenburg, Saxony, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and Schleswig-Holstein — is to be presented to the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) before an end-of-month deadline.

It will be up to the DOSB to decide which Games to bid for. Los Angeles is hosting the 2028 Olympics and Brisbane the 2032 Olympics, so the next available edition will be 2036, the 100th anniversary of the Berlin Games.

The DOSB previously said a German bid for 2040 was also possible.

“I believe that the 2036 Games, regardless of where they take place, will also focus on the Nazi Games of 1936. That’s part of history and attention will be paid to it,” Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner said. “I have to tell you, I’m proud to be the governing mayor of a city that has changed in the last 100 years, that we no longer stand for dictatorship, exclusion, and mass violence, but that Berlin is now a cosmopolitan, international metropolis, a colorful, diverse city.”

Wegner said it was “important for Germany to make a bid. We’re making an offer here today.”

Wegner, Spranger and the governors from the other four states made their presentation in the same battle-scarred stadium, Berlin’s Olympiastadion, where Adolf Hitler watched Owens, the Black American athlete, win four gold medals in the 1936 Games, dealing a blow to Hitler’s notions of racial superiority.

Hitler was personally involved in the design and construction of the 100,000-seat track-and-field stadium after the Nazis assumed power in 1933, two years after the Games were awarded to the city.

photo by: Kahner Sampson/Special to the Journal-World

Kansas’ Jacob Cookinham prepares to throw the shot put at the Big 12 Outdoor Track and Field Championship at Rock Chalk Park on Friday, May 16, 2025.

Having earned the opportunity to compete by recording some of the top marks in the nation over the course of the 2025 outdoor season, a variety of Kansas athletes will get the chance to earn spots in the national championship.

Top competitors like senior men’s discus thrower Dimitrios Pavlidis and sophomore women’s pole vaulter Mason Meinershagen will get their latest chance to reach the national stage if they can perform well in the NCAA West Preliminary, which begins on Wednesday in College Station, Texas, and continues through Saturday night. The event will be televised on ESPN+.

Pavlidis, Meinershagen, men’s pole vaulter Clayton Simms and women’s 800 meters competitor Aaliyah Moore are all looking to make return trips to the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Eugene, Oregon, which begin in two weeks, while a host of additional Jayhawks are looking to make their first-ever trips to the event.

The first KU competitors to get going in College Station will be several of the men’s field athletes. The top 12 finishers in these events will advance to Eugene.

Most notably, the KU men’s pole vault squad will take center stage at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday. This is the only event in which the Jayhawks have five athletes competing, and junior Ashton Barkdull, who won the Big 12 title in Lawrence by clearing 5.61 meters, sports a No. 4 ranking that equals the highest of any Jayhawk.

He is joined by his brother Bryce Barkdull, with a seed of 5.51, and three teammates at 5.41 in Brady Koolen, Anthony Meacham and Simms, all of whom posted their season-best marks at the Big 12 Championship. Of note, Simms was last year’s national runner-up but has battled injury this season.

Next at 6 p.m. is the men’s shot put, featuring two-sport junior Bryce Foster, who narrowly missed out on national qualification last season when he was still at Texas A&M, and freshman Jacob Cookinham. Cookinham is the higher seed at No. 16 after his fifth-place finish in Big 12 competition.

Sophomore Paul Ngasharr and junior Tanner Talley, who finished less than a second apart at the Big 12 Championship in the men’s 1,500 meters, will be up at 6:30 p.m. Each needs to either finish in the top five in his 12-man heat or earn one of the four best remaining times as 24 athletes advance overall.

Later, at 7:50, TJ Robinson will battle for a spot in the men’s 800 meters by reaching the top three in his nine-man heat or earning one of the other six best remaining times. He does have the third-best seed in his heat with his time of one minute, 47.37 seconds.

The women’s competition starts on Thursday. Once again, the first Jayhawks in action will be the pole vaulters at 5:30 p.m.

KU runs four deep in this event with seventh-seeded Meinershagen, No. 9 Erica Ellis, No. 22 Gabby Hoke and No. 58 Madison Snody. Last year, Meinershagen was the only freshman Jayhawk who made it to nationals. This season she reset a program record by clearing 4.51 meters.

Sophomore Emmaculate Jemutai has been on a tear in the women’s 1,500 meters (6:30 p.m. Thursday), and her time of 4:08.60, which set school and meet records at the Big 12 Championship, is No. 12 in the country, as well as the second-best mark in her heat, in which she can make the top five to advance.

At 7:25 p.m., it will be Pearl Awanya’s turn in the 400 meters, where she ranks No. 42 and, like Robinson, will aim for the top three in a nine-person heat.

The busy Thursday evening for KU continues at 7:50 with Moore, a senior from Guyana looking to make it back to nationals but entering this year at No. 87 in the 800 meters.

Then, at 8:20 p.m., a contingent of three Jayhawks will battle it out in various heats of the women’s 400-meter hurdles. Sophomore Sidney Smith made noise earlier in the year with a string of victories, but she’s ranked 87th at 58.76 and it’s actually her classmate Aleksandra Wolczak who enters with a better seed, 57th at 58.01. Senior Addison Brooks enters ranked just behind Smith at 89th with a time of 58.81.

Friday’s action for KU consists solely of the men’s discus at 1 p.m. Pavlidis, a bronze medalist at the national meet last season, currently ranks No. 4, having recorded a throw of 63.86 meters at the Jayhawk Spring Fling in March. Teammate Joseph Kieny has a tougher road to the top 12 as the No. 75 seed.

The Jayhawks also have a strong duo in the women’s discus, set for 1 p.m. on Saturday. Junior Sofia Sluchaninova is seventh in the nation with her mark of 60.21 meters from the Rock Chalk Classic in April. Freshman Madeleine Fey is No. 29 at 55.88, which she recorded at the Spring Fling.

Another freshman will get her chance to shine shortly afterward as Kori Randle competes in the women’s triple jump at 2:30 p.m. She comes in at No. 33 after posting a mark of 13.11 meters in Big 12 play, which she will likely need to exceed to reach the top 12.

Meinershagen will compete in her second event, the high jump, at 3:30 p.m. She is seeded No. 52 there with a mark of 1.78 meters.

Another Jayhawk rookie, Ebba Cronholm, has started her career strong and will look to continue her momentum from a third-place finish at the Big 12 Championship. She enters with a time of 10:00.55 at a No. 24 ranking.

The final event of the preliminary round is the 4×400-meter relay at 8:45 p.m. Saturday. KU comes in at No. 101 at 3:36.98 and will need to make the top three in its nine-team heat or clinch one of the three best remaining times with some combination of Smith, Deshana Skeete, Awanya, Moore, Brooks, Brooke Freeman and Wolczak.

A pair of veteran Jayhawks in the field of combined events have already earned their spots in Eugene. Senior Alexander Jung (No. 15) and junior Tayton Klein (No. 23) squeezed their way into the top 24 overall performers and will get another chance at championship glory. Last year, Klein finished 14th at nationals and Jung 23rd.

photo by: Kahner Sampson/Special to the Journal-World

KU’s Erica Ellis competes in the women’s pole vault during the Big 12 Outdoor Track and Field Championships hosted at Rock Chalk Park in Lawrence on Friday, May 16, 2025.

photo by: Kahner Sampson/Special to the Journal-World

KU freshman Madison Snody clears the bar while competing in the women’s pole vault during the Big 12 Outdoor Track and Field Championships at Rock Chalk Park in Lawrence on Friday, May 16, 2025.

photo by: Kahner Sampson/Special to the Journal-World

KU sophomore Mason Meinershagen competes in the women’s pole vault during the Big 12 Outdoor Track and Field Championships on Friday, May 16, 2025, at Rock Chalk Park.

photo by: Kahner Sampson/Special to the Journal-World

KU redshirt senior Gabby Hoke competes in the women’s pole vault during the Big 12 Outdoor Track and Field Championships hosted at Rock Chalk Park in Lawrence on Friday, May 16, 2025.

photo by: Kahner Sampson/Special to the Journal-World

Kansas’ Tayton Klein is acknowledged on the podium at the Big 12 Outdoor Track and Field Championship at Rock Chalk Park on Friday, May 16, 2025.

photo by: Kahner Sampson/Special to the Journal-World

Kansas’ Pearl Awanya competes in the 400 meters at the Big 12 Outdoor Track and Field Championship at Rock Chalk Park on Friday, May 16, 2025.

photo by: Kahner Sampson/Special to the Journal-World

Kansas’ Aaliyah Moore runs the 800 meters at the Big 12 Outdoor Track and Field Championship at Rock Chalk Park on Friday, May 16, 2025.

photo by: Kahner Sampson/Special to the Journal-World

Kansas’ Emmaculate Jemutai runs the 800 meters at the Big 12 Outdoor Track and Field Championship at Rock Chalk Park on Friday, May 16, 2025.

photo by: Kahner Sampson/Special to the Journal-World

Kansas’ Bryce Foster prepares to throw the shot put at the Big 12 Outdoor Track and Field Championship at Rock Chalk Park on Friday, May 16, 2025.