LINCOLN, Neb. — While her future collegiate status was never in doubt, the road to get to Lincoln and the University of Nebraska was made more difficult by a torn anterior cruciate ligament that New Rockford-Sheyenne’s Kelsie Belquist suffered during the basketball season of her senior year.
Belquist’s injury forced her to miss all of her senior track season. During her high school career, Belquist won 10 state titles and was named the 2022-23 North Dakota Gatorade Girls’ Track and Field Player of the Year. She also owns three current state records.
Because of the injury, she is not participating in any of the hurdle events this year, a race that she won six of her 10 state titles while she was a Rocket.
While she has returned, she is not fully cleared and is still going through physical therapy before she will be 100% back to full health.
“It’s been going good,” Belquist said. “We’re still running out on PT trying to keep my knee strong. … So, we’re just doing a lot of PT and lifting and getting it strong. I’m technically not out of recovery yet but it’s been going good.”
Belquist was officially cleared to return to practice in November and the first few weeks were all about getting her conditioning back to where it was before the injury.
Almost a year after the injury, Belquist hit the track as a member of the Huskers Track and Field team. She returned to the track on Jan. 24 at the Prairie Wolf Indoor Invitational, where she ran in the 60- and 400-meter dashes. Her first win as a Husker came in the 400-meter race, where she recorded a time of 55.75 seconds.
Belquist said she was more nervous about competing against the more experienced collegiate runners than potentially reinjuring her knee when she stepped onto the track for the first event.
“It meant a lot. I crossed the finish line and I was extremely surprised,” Belquist said with a chuckle. “I didn’t even think I could run that. But it means a lot, it shows that all of the hard work through the summer and all of the painful days in the fall through fall training were all worth it, even though they didn’t seem like it at the time. It just showed that … I was progressing even if it didn’t feel like I was.”
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This season, Belquist has competed in six different events, competing in the 400-, 200- and 60-meter dash and the 4x400-meter relay. She compiled two wins and six top 5 finishes. Belquist finished her first indoor track-and-field season competing in the Big Ten Championships where she finished 15th in the 400-meter preliminaries and 15th as part of the 4x400-meter relay.
Belquist said she gained confidence with every race she ran.
“I still have a ways to go but it seems out of reach but I also thought that about the times I’m running now,” Belquist said. “So I do know that it is possible, I just have to keep working hard in practice and in the offseason.”
Belquist and the rest of her Huskers teammates begin their outdoor season on Friday, April 4, when they go to the Florida Relays. Belquist said she and her coaches have a list of goals that are mostly centered around times for her to reach.
Belquist said she does not know when she will be fully recovered because her knee still acts up every once in a while, especially when it gets stiff, but she is hoping it is fully healed by summer. Belquist said she spends time with her trainers on a daily basis and they are very open to changing her workout plans based on how she is feeling on any given day.
“Just finding time for everything has been my biggest challenge, with class and practice and lift,” Belquist said. “It’s difficult to get your mindset into, 'I need to do recovery,’ when I feel perfectly fine on days, but there are days where I know I need it really bad but I think finding time to go and recover is probably the biggest challenge I’ve had as of now.”
Belquist said the recovery process has gotten easier mentally than it was in the immediate aftermath. She said returning to the track has served as a “breath of fresh air.”
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“I’ve definitely grown a lot. I think I have a completely different perspective on track and track meets,” Belquist said. “I used to get so nervous and think that I had this expectation that I had to meet and now I’m just extremely thankful to be running and blessed to be running. So I don’t think about those things that would make me super anxious. I’m more just having a lot more fun now.”
Before she enrolled at the University of Nebraska, Belquist said she thought about following the coach who recruited her, Brenton Emmanuel, to the University of Southern California. However, she stayed committed to the Huskers.
“I really have a good connection with him, but I knew I needed to give myself a chance in somewhere that I loved and I enjoyed my visit here,” Belquist said. “I knew I needed to give myself a chance and I’m very, very glad I did stay because I’m having a lot of success and I’ve made a lot of connections here.”
Belquist said last summer, while Emmanuel was still with the Huskers, he reached out to her and assured her that she was still going to be a Husker. Belquist reached out to Husker teammate Cece Deebom, who is from Fargo, for support while she recovered from her injury.
“I used her a lot. It was really nice to have someone that I knew coming down here, it felt a little safer and more comfortable,” Belquist said.
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