Goal achieved.

Decathlete Neil Hines set a goal for himself at the beginning of the track and field season – become an All-American. Hines accomplished that goal with a personal record of 7,664 points, to earn fourth place at NCAA Nationals last week in Sacramento, Calif.

“It’s just a great feeling, and things just went perfectly,” Hines said. “For people who don’t have a ton of talent to begin with, a lot of things have to go right for that to happen over a long period of time, so I’m just thankful.”

As five coaches did not have their contracts renewed at the end of the season, Hines was the final athlete coach Steve Lynn got to work with at Iowa State, something he said was meaningful and hard at the same time.

“It’s bitter and sweet. I’m glad that I was with them at the end of their coaching career here,” Hines said. “It’s a tough thing to deal with, but I can selfishly say that I like to be the one that got to go out with them, and to go out with a bang.”

Hines set personal bests in the shot put, high jump, 110-meter hurdles and the 1,500-meter run. The time of 4 minutes, 33.91 seconds in the 1,500 cemented Hines’ lead over Northern Iowa’s Raven Cepeda to hold on to fourth place at the meet’s end.

Hines’ previous personal best score of 7,508 points would have put him in eighth place in the competition. The new personal best was just good enough to keep him in fourth – the same as his national ranking entering Nationals.

“That’s a hell of a good score. It took great efforts by the people that beat him to keep him there,” Lynn said.

Hines attributed his success to the people he worked with.

“The coaches and trainers, the time that they put in for this to happen has been a tremendous sacrifice for them, and I’m just thankful that I got to spend time for them here,” Hines said.

As satisfying as the end result was, Hines said if he had not ended up as an All-American he wouldn’t have been devastated. Working toward the goal was just as important as reaching it.

“In the week leading up to the meet, I really realized it was the journey leading up to the goal that is important, not just reaching the goal,” Hines said. “I realize how lucky I have been to find myself here, to find Iowa State.”

On the women’s side, Jenna Caffrey finished 26th in the 100-meter hurdles with a time of 13.77 seconds in the preliminaries. Priya Hoze was 26th in the long jump with a jump of 5.61 meters in the qualifying round, and Agata Kosuda was 22nd in the triple jump with a mark of 12.85 meters.

“They came in and they competed. They all had goals of getting on to that next round, and that’s the case with most people here,” said women’s coach Dick Lee.

Lee said the body of work for the athletes over the whole season was still impressive even though none of the three qualified for finals.

“I’m just really proud of them and what they’ve done this year and the way they competed this weekend too even though they didn’t advance to the next round,” Lee said.