North Dakota State University director of track and field and cross country Stevie Keller announced the addition of two North Dakota high school athletes to the 2021 men’s recruiting class on Tuesday.

Kaden Pastian, a thrower from Hillsboro/Central Valley High School, and Mason Kindel, a distance runner from Bismarck Century, will continue their academic and athletic careers at NDSU.

Pastian won the North Dakota Class B state title in the discus as a sophomore in 2019 for Hillsboro/Central Valley, as well as placing third at the state meet in the shot put. He topped 180 feet in the discus to claim the state championship.

Kindel is a four-time all-state performer in cross country for Century, placing in the top seven at the state meet in the past two years. He finished in the top 15 at the state cross country meet for each of his four years of high school, taking fifth place as a senior in 2020. On the track, Kindel was a state meet qualifier in the 1600m, 3200m, and 4x800m relay as a sophomore in 2019.

The Bison men have won a combined 19 indoor and outdoor Summit League team titles since 2008, including 10 straight outdoor crowns.

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Men’s basketball opens Summit League play at Western Illinois Jan. 2-3

The Bison will travel to Macomb, Ill., to open Summit League play at Western Illinois on Saturday, Jan. 2, and Sunday, Jan. 3. Both games are scheduled to tip at 3:30 pm following the 1 p.m. women’s games between the Bison and Leathernecks.

Saturday and Sunday will be the 30th and 31st games between NDSU and Western Illinois dating back to 2007-08. NDSU holds a 21-8 lead in the all-time series. The Bison have won 15 of the last 16 against the Leathernecks, going a perfect 5-0 over the past two seasons.

This season, the five highest single-game scoring outputs by a Bison player have come from five different players – Jarius Cook (22) vs. TCU, Rocky Kreuser (21) vs. TCU, Sam Griesel (20) vs. South Dakota State, Maleeck Harden-Hayes (18) vs. South Dakota State, and Tyree Eady (17) vs. South Dakota. Meanwhile, sophomore Jarius Cook scored a career-high 22 points and added a career-high six rebounds in NDSU’s loss at TCU on Dec. 22.

Also making his presence felt, NDSU junior Sam Griesel dished out 12 assists at TCU on Dec. 22, which tied for the seventh-most in a single game in school history, and the most ever by a Bison against a Division I opponent. Prior to the games at the Dakota Showcase in Sioux Falls on Dec. 10-12, Griesel had only led the Bison in scoring one time in his career. He did it twice in that three-game event – against South Dakota State on Dec. 10, and against North Dakota on Dec. 12.

Collectively, NDSU’s field goal percentage increased significantly in its three games at the Dakota Showcase. After shooting 34 percent as a team through the first four games of the season, the Bison shot 46 percent for their three games in Sioux Falls on Dec. 10-12.

Other early season contributors include sophomores Jarius Cook and Maleeck Harden-Hayes, who have already played more minutes this year than they did in their entire freshman campaigns. Cook has logged 224 minutes in eight games this year, topping the 187 he played in the 2018-19 season before taking a redshirt year. Harden-Hayes has played 189 minutes in seven games this season, surpassing the 161 he played as a freshman last year.