GULF SHORES, Ala. — The Goshen College men's track and field team picked up its second All-American honor of the 2021 NAIA outdoor national championship on Friday evening when Simon Graber Miller placed fifth in the men's high jump with a leap of 6 feet, 8½ inches.

The Maple Leafs also picked up a national finalist in the women's 5,000-meter run, where Summer Cooper finished 10th to advance to the national championship on Friday, and nearly added another in the men's 5,000 as Nelson Kemboi finished 17th — missing out on advancing by one spot and less than 1.1 seconds.

But while Cooper will have a chance to add to Goshen's team score Friday night, Graber Miller actually did it on Thursday. The junior from Goshen, Indiana, and Bethany Christian High School converted on two of his first three jumps, clearing 6-7½ on the second try and 6-8½ on the first, to get himself into the top nine in the country.

The third height, which would have allowed him to match his school record of 6-9¾, would prove a different challenge, as seven of the nine athletes missed on all three of the allotted attempts. Graber Miller was among that group and sorted out to a tie for fifth based on the number of jumps missed. The top eight finishers receive the All-American honor.

Shandon Reitzell of Midland University in Nebraska was the national champion at 7-2¼, followed by Tony Kinser of Southwestern College in Kansas, who cleared 6-9¾ on his first try.

Graber Miller follows in the All-American footsteps of Jacob Gerber, who placed third in the nation in the hammer throw on Wednesday, and repeated his performance from indoor nationals in March, when he was an All-American with a third-place finish. He is the first GC male athlete to win All-American honors twice in the same year in the same field event. Two women have turned that trick: Ann Christenson did it in the shot put in 2001 and Peni Acayo did it in the triple jump in 2010.

While Cooper never had the honor of leading the 5,000-meter field, as Annika Fisher did Wednesday in the 4x800-meter relay, she stayed in the middle of her heat throughout the 12½-lap race and gradually moved up, getting as high as fifth place before finishing in sixth to claim the final automatic transfer spot from her heat into the final. She finished in 17 minutes, 42.19 seconds, the second-fastest time of her career.

Later in the evening, Kemboi nearly blew the room away as he spent much of his heat running third and got up as high as second around the two-mile mark. In a race where the top four finishers qualified for the final, he dropped to fourth with three laps remaining and lost another spot at the bell lap to finish fifth in his heat. His time of 14:59.40 stood up through the second heat, but ended up outside the cut line after the third and final section.

The Maple Leafs lost their fourth and final chance to score team points on the men's side Friday morning when Spencer Waterman was one of 12 athletes who did not finish the marathon. Of the 30 men who started, only 18 finished, with Jake Barraclough of Savannah College of Art and Design winning in 158 minutes on the nose.

Goshen's national trip will conclude Friday evening at 6:30 p.m. Eastern time when Summer Cooper takes to the track in the women's 5,000-meter run. By qualifying for the final, she has assured herself a spot in the top 16 of that event; the top 8 earn All-American honors. The race will be streamed live on the NAIA Network presented by Stretch Internet.