Only Zac Brouillette will make the trek down to College Station, Texas this weekend to compete in the NCAA Indoor National Championship meet.

Brouillette, a senior, provisionally qualified earlier in the year at the Iowa State Open with a throw of 19.93 meters.

Until this past weekend, however, Brouillette was a long shot at getting into nationals. This quickly changed though, as Brouillette threw 20.81 meters, which put him at the 13th best throw in the nation, and also gave him an NCAA berth.

The list of national participants came out March 9th, and senior Zac Brouillette was surprised when he heard he was among those competitors.

“To come from what I have until now, I had worked hard. …and I knew there was a chance but it was a long shot and, well I guess it happened.”

Brouillette started his college career as a walk on and has worked hard and pushed himself to get to a national qualifier, and both coach John Dagata and head coach Corey Ihmels are proud of that.

“I think the one thing that is important with Zac going to nationals is what he symbolizes,” Ihmels said. “Here’s a guy that was only throwing 47 feet two years ago and all of the sudden is going to nationals, and it’s been a quantum leap of what he’s been able to do from his starting point to now. It’s just been a lot of hard work.”

Brouillette has always been up for the competition and waiting for him at the NCAA meet is the toughest competition he has or will ever face, however he isn’t fazed by the pressure.

“I like to be under pressure, last week it was about as much pressure as you can get, I had to throw last meet but it just gives me something to shoot for,” Brouillette said.

Coach Dagata said that Brouillette is prepared to throw and do well at nationals, and Brouillette feels the same way about himself.

“I think he’s doing well,” Dagata said. “This week we’ve been making sure he’s ready and making sure he is physically able to hopefully set a personal best at nationals because that’s the goal to go to the biggest meet of the year and do your best so, I think he’s ready.”

Brouillette feels ready too, as he is riding the momentum created by his performance last week.

“I’m still riding high off of last week,” Brouillette said. “This week has been non-stop and I’ve been throwing just as well as I was last week but I’m feeling good. I was a little tired coming off Saturday but now I feel good.”

Although Brouillette making nationals was good for the team, the coaches said there were guys who they wanted to get in along with Brouillette. “As a staff we all wanted everyone to make it, we wanted Hillary Bor to make it and James Galvan in the 800 and even Elphas Sang,” Dagata said. Some of Brouillette’s teammates, such as Bor, Guor Marial, Kiel Uhl, Luke Pinkelman, Galvan, and Sang, all provisionally qualified earlier this season, however will not be making the trip down to College Station to compete.