Earlier this year, two Aplington-Parkersburg alumni announced they’ll transfer to finish their collegiate track & field careers.
Sophia Jungling will transfer from Northern Iowa to LSU. Megan Johnson will transfer from Central College to Oklahoma. Both graduated from Aplington-Parkersburg in 2020.
Johnson is coming off a senior season with the Dutch that was highlighted by a 3,000-meter steeplechase national championship, where she ran 10:13.46 to record the seventh-fastest time in Division III history. She also competed in the 5,000-meters and helped the Dutch earn an eighth-place finish as a team while earning All-America honors.
Johnson says she’ll use her background in a Division III program to bring a level of grittiness to the Sooner program.
“Coming from a D3 school, we don’t have all the fancy stuff or anything like that,” Johnson says. “So it’s just really doing it out of love for the sport. And we don’t have a bunch of scholarships available for athletics. So you’re really just doing it out of love for the sport and just kind of like a blue collar type deal. You just show up to practice with the shoes that you buy and the clothes that you buy and everything like that. Just kind of like that humbleness. I think I’m gonna just take that grit with me and take that, just simple approach, just the grind of it, you know, just take that with me.”
Jungling’s junior season at UNI was highlighted by a PR winning time of 4:32.20 in the 1,500-meters at the Good Friday Challenge at Wartburg and a season-best 2:10.25 in the 800-meters to win the Musco Twilight Meet at Iowa.
Jungling feels it was fate that brought her and Johnson together to finish their eligibility in the same Division I conference.
“It’s so cool,” Jungling says. “I think Megan and I have talked about this quite a bit. Megan and I have been best friends for many, many years, since we were like probably 10-years-old. And so we’ve kind of been through it all together. And I don’t think you could have asked either one of us four years ago, if we were going to end our college careers in the SEC together, we probably would have laughed and been like, ‘Yeah, absolutely not.’ So it’s just really cool. I’ve had a front row seat to Megan’s success, and being able to do some cool things for myself too. So just to be able to wrap it up together, I think is just definitely a God thing and it’s really cool and I’m really, really excited.”
The pair have worked together to train Aplington-Parkersburg student-athletes throughout the summer.
Jungling is attending graduate school at LSU to study sports business. Johnson is entering graduate school at Oklahoma in pursuit of a master’s degree in health and exercise science.
Interview with Jungling and Johnson:
