MARION, Ind. – A three-year gap between national appearances would be long for anyone, but the wait Josiah Kocis had to endure felt particularly long.

As a freshman at Midway, Kocis found immediate success as a distance runner, ending his first college season by qualifying for the now-defunct half-marathon event at the 2022 NAIA Outdoor Track and Field Championships.

Kocis certainly didn't fall off after his freshman season, even managing to qualify for the NAIA Cross Country National Championships in both 2023 and 2024. But his attempts to make it back in track and field have been thwarted by a string of bizarre misfortune, much of it happening outside of competition.

The first bad break came at the end of the 2023 season. A confident and well-conditioned Kocis went into the Lee Last Chance Meet in May believing he was primed to secure a national spot in the 10,000-meter run.

He'd never get his chance. Just days before the race, he was rear-ended while stuck in traffic, suffering a concussion in the accident.

Things got even worse in 2024. While training between indoor and outdoor seasons, he developed an illness he thought would be brief and mild but proved to be anything but.

"It started with a bad cough and went into my lungs and a couple days became a couple weeks," Kocis said. "And before I knew it, I had missed a couple meets and didn't feel good enough to even run a few miles."

Though he says he never actually got a diagnosis, the illness made it difficult to even get out of bed for an extended period. And by the time it broke, the season was already weeks old, and Kocis decided his conditioning would not be strong enough to return to action.

Kocis said he finally started to feel normal again about a month into cross country season in the fall, which paid off with his second-straight individual qualification to nationals. But even fully healthy, it initially looked like he still might not be able to dodge misfortune.

Still looking to hit the 10,000-meter national time at the River States Conference Outdoor Championships in May, Kocis entered the final lap right on the cusp of hitting the 'B' standard time of 30:58. Hoping to find another gear, he was understandably distraught when he crossed the finish line in 30:58.69, less than a second shy of the goal.

"It really felt like, 'Oh man, is this going to happen again?,'" he said. "I just kind of laid on my back on the track. To be that close in that race definitely stung for a bit."

Fortunately, he would have another "Last Chance" at the event where his bad luck streak began.

Two weeks after the conference race, Kocis was set to make his long-awaited debut at the Lee Last Chance in Cleveland, Tenn.

Feeling great and having avoided freak accidents, he entered the 10K race on May 10 on a mission, even skipping his graduation with hopes of securing a national berth.

"It really motivated me to not only hit (the qualifying standard) but not make it close," he said. "I  didn't want it to come down to a second or two."

It didn't.

Kocis got off to a blistering start and kept a steady pace throughout, eventually crossing the line nearly 10 seconds under the standard in 30:48.22. That time earned him the No. 22 seed in the 10,000-meter national race, which will run at 9:10 p.m. on Wednesday.

This wouldn't have been Kocis' last opportunity to make nationals. He plans to return to Midway to pursue and MBA and will have another season of outdoor eligibility remaining after sitting out 2024.

But after everything that happened between his first and second appearances, he was understandably eager to make it happen this spring.

"It's been awhile," said Kocis, who believes he has a realistic shot to finish anywhere from 15th to 20th on Wednesday. "The standards for track are pretty tough and they keep getting faster. And to miss out on it because of the accident my sophomore year, then the sickness junior year, I really felt like I had to do it this year.

"Thankfully we ended the streak of bad luck."