Seventh-Year Senior Caps 'Greatest Day' With 4,475 Points And U.S. Pentathlon Title; Steven Bastien Defends Men's Heptathlon Crown 

By David Woods for DyeStat

INDIANAPOLIS – Cheyenne Nesbitt is an artist and a juggler. And a newlywed. And a grad student. And a would-be schoolteacher. And a one-time basketball player.

Sound like multi-tasking? Sure. That’s what multi-events athletes do.

Nesbitt, 24, a seventh-year senior at Saginaw Valley State, underscored how far she has come and how far she might go during USATF’s combined event indoor championships. She scored 4,475 points Sunday, becoming the first collegian to win this national title and obliterating her NCAA Division 2 record.

“Oh my God!” she shouted after the closing 800 meters. “This is the greatest day of my life!”

Great day for all the Nesbitts.

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Multi-eventers can toil in solitude, but that is never the case in this family. The one they call “Chey” – pronounced “Shay” – had boisterous boosters at the new Fall Creek Pavilion venue.

Cheyenne’s husband, Brendan, is a track guy. He was a 1:51 half-miler.  He was coached in high school by his father, Michael. Michael was coached at Saginaw Valley State by his father, Jim, once an NAIA 880-yard champion at Central Michigan. The grandfather-in-law was charting every run, jump and throw.

Too much track and field? It’s all love.

“They’re there through all of it. They’ve given me so much,” Cheyenne said. “It’s incredible. It just helps along the way. Mentally, physically, emotionally.”

The former Cheyenne Williamson placed in state meets in hurdles and played basketball for Garber High in Essexville, Mich. A knee injury ended hoop dreams, a condition so debilitating it took her out of two college track seasons. Then the COVID-19 pandemic ended the 2020 season prematurely.

No one could have projected she would win nine NCAA-II titles, including three heptathlons. She credited Saginaw Valley coach Ron Cowan for such an evolution. It didn’t hurt that she once trained with Lauren Huebner, the 2019 NCAA Division 2 champion who scored 5,364 points in the hep.

“She’s just really athletic,” Brendan Nesbitt said of his wife. “She was super underdeveloped out of high school.”

Cheyenne Nesbitt broke her own Division 2 record of 4,292 points from the 2022 indoor final at Pittsburg State. Coincidentally, she jumped ahead of her Division 2 peers, who will hold indoor nationals here in 2025.

She climbed to 15th on the all-time collegiate list, 10th among U.S.-born pentathletes. She fell short of the collegiate-leading score of 4,528 by USC’s Allie Jones on Friday at Fayetteville, Ark. Nesbitt is thus No. 2 in the world this year.

After fouling out of the long jump at last year’s USATF heptathlon, she is aiming at June’s Olympic Trials. Her hep best is 5,861.

“It’s falling in place,” she said. “I’ve just got to keep working at it to make it better.”

Her marks: 8.43 seconds in 60-meter hurdles (1,032 points); 6-0/1.83m in high jump (1,016); 42-9.75/13.05m in shot put; 19-6.75/5.96m in long jump; 2:17.41 in 800.

Nesbitt needed to stay within about three seconds of Annie Kunz in the 800 and ended up overtaking her. Kunz finished second with 4,418 points and Hope Bender third with 4,392.

Kunz, after winning the pentathlon at nationals in 2020 and the Olympic Trials heptathlon in 2021, has been impaired since 2022 by an injury to her plantar fascia. She was encouraged by winning the hurdles in 8.18, just off her PB of 8.15 from 2021.

“This is the first time in two years I’ve started with no pain, so I’m excited about that,” said Kunz, 30, a former Texas A&M soccer player. “I’m just firing on all cylinders. I kind of feel like myself again.”

Bastien repeats in heptathlon

Steven Bastien finished first in four events and repeated as heptathlon champion with 5,886 points. That was down from his 6,012 last year and PB of 6,074.

Bastien, a Saline native, made it sweep of titles by the state of Michigan. He became the first competitor to win the heptathlon in consecutive years since Jake Arnold captured three in a row from 2008-10 (Garrett Scantling secured championships in 2020 and 2022, with the meet being canceled in 2021 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic).

Jack Flood finished second with 5,665 and Jakob Tordsen third with 5,494.

Bastien, a 2021 Olympian, was sixth at the 2022 World Indoor Championships. He was aiming at another indoor worlds but conceded his score likely won’t make him among the 12 invited to Glasgow, Scotland.

On Saturday, he won the 60 meters in 7.04 (868), won the long jump at 24-1/7.34m (896), was second in the shot put at 45-9.25/13.95m (725) and fourth in the high jump at 6-4.75/1.95m (758).  Day 1 totaled 3,247 points.

On Day 2, Bastien was second in the 60 hurdles in 8.19 (935), first in the pole vault at 15-9/4.80m (849) and first in the 1,000 meters in 2:41.67 (855).

“I felt every event, I was like missing some sort of timing,” he said. “It’s so early in the season, I kind of expected that.”

Kyle Garland, whose score of 6,639 missed the world record by six points last year, declared for the meet but was a no-show. Devon Williams withdrew after the first event.

Bastien fell short of the U.S.-leading score of 5,985 set by Illinois’ Aiden Ouimet at Champaign on Saturday. Ouimet was second to the world-leading 6,340 by Ken Mullings of the Bahamas.

Contact David Woods at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidWoods007