Kimi Shank is money and she doesn’t even know it.
You probably recall that Shank was a standout runner for Rolla High School. She had an incredible prep career. Incredible. But, she’s surpassing even that in college. And quickly!
The sophomore at Missouri Southern State University broke four school records this year. She earned All-American honors in two events. She helped lead the Lions to the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association championship in cross country, indoor track, and outdoor track.
However, she remains humble as ever. Shank says she hasn’t really thought about it.
“I’ve never had it put to me that way,” Shank said. “I guess it sounds pretty good to me.”
Pretty good?
Shank said the highlight of her track season was going to NCAA Division II Outdoor Track & Field Championships held May 22-24 in Walnut, Calif. The Lions finished 11th out of 57 teams.
Shank finished fifth in the 10,000-meter run with a time of 35:48.64, earning All-American honors. Amazingly, it was only the third time ever she had run the 10K.
She also finished 10th in the 5,000-meter run with a time of 17:28.9, just two spots from All-American honors.
“I had never been out to California before,” Shank said. “The first day was rainy. We had a long rain delay and I ended up running at 10:50 p.m., 12:50 a.m. our time. Other than that, I really liked it out there.”
She had to run the 10K that first night, the 5K preliminaries the second day, and the 5K finals the third day.
“It was a very long weekend. My calves were really sore,” Shank said. “I was looking forward to a week or two off after that.”
It capped off a fabulous season for Shank. She was the Lions top scorer at the MIAA Outdoor Championships, winning the 10K and finishing second in the 5K. It was the first time ever that the Missouri Southern women had won the MIAA Outdoor title.
Before that, she helped the Lions to a first-place finishes in the MIAA Indoor Championships and the MIAA Cross Country Championships. Despite being sick the weekend of the MIAA Indoors, Shank placed second in both the 3,000-meter run and the 5K.
“Winning conference in outdoors was really cool. It gave us what we called the triple crown, conference championships in cross country, indoor track, and outdoor track,” Shank said. “It’s the first time any team has done that at Missouri Southern. So, we were all stoked about that.”
