ST. LOUIS – Indiana State assistant track and field coach Brandan Bettenhausen was selected as the 2026 Missouri Valley Conference Women's Outdoor Track and Field Assistant Coach of the Year, the league office announced Wednesday afternoon.
 
Bettenhausen, who is in his ninth season coaching the Sycamores' throwers, guided Indiana State's throwers to seven all-conference honors across four events at the MVC Outdoor Championships. The Sycamore throwers scored 69 points between the shot put (21), discus (18), hammer throw (24) and javelin (six), outscoring six entire team totals. Bettenhausen had five different throwers score points at the conference championships, with Aliseonna Garnett and Emma Yoder both scoring more than 20 points across their events. Three of his throwers – Garnett, Yoder and Cora Williams – qualified for the NCAA East First Rounds, while Bettenhausen coached the Sycamores to top-25 national rankings in three different events – the hammer throw (seventh), shot put (12th) and discus (21st).
 
Garnett earned all-conference accolades in three different events during the 2026 outdoor season, setting program top-five marks in both the shot put (16.13m/52-11) and discus (53.71m/176-2) and a program top-10 mark in the hammer throw (57.51m/188-8) while reaching the NCAA East First Rounds in both the shot put and discus. Garnett was the discus champion at the outdoor championships after winning the shot put at the indoor championships.
 
Yoder won the hammer throw at the conference championships with a career-best mark of 61.84m (202-11) which ranks in the top three in program history. A year after winning the discus title on her way to Freshman of the Year honors, Yoder scored in three events at the MVC Outdoor Championships, while setting program top-10 marks in the hammer throw and discus (49.82m/163-5) to qualify for the NCAA East First Round for the first time in her career.
 
Williams scored in both the shot put and hammer throw for the Sycamores, with her hammer mark of 58.81m (192-11) securing her a spot in the NCAA East First Round. She threw her career-best of 14.48m (47-6.265) in the shot put at the MVC Outdoor Championships as one of four Indiana State athletes to score in the event. Williams became the second women's freshman thrower in the last three years to reach the NCAA East First Round under Bettenhausen, after Lillian Gibbs did so in 2024.
 
Gibbs also returned in the tail end of the 2026 outdoor season to earn all-conference honors in the javelin for a third straight season. Her mark of 41.98m (137-9) placed her third at the MVC Outdoor Championships, becoming the first Sycamore to earn three straight all-conference honors in the event.
 
Olivia Marshall scored career-best performances in both the shot put and hammer throw at the MVC Championships under Bettenhausen's watch, with her shot put mark of 14.84m (48-8.25) earning all-conference honors. Marshall also scored points in the hammer with her mark of 55.46m (181-11), and earned MVC Elite 18 honors as the highest GPA among medalists.
 
Wednesday's honor is the third MVC Assistant Coach of the Year award for Bettenhausen, who was previously named 2024 MVC Men's Outdoor Track and Field Assistant Coach of the Year and the 2026 MVC Women's Indoor Track and Field Coach of the Year. He is the third Sycamore assistant in the last five seasons to earn an MVC Coach of the Year honor, alongside Jeff Martin and Julian Harvey.
 
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