Staff Directory
- Title:
- Associate Head Coach
Jenni Ashcroft enters her ninth year with U-M for the 2025-26 season, serving as an assistant coach overseeing the jumping events and combined events for both genders through the 2021-22 academic year and taking on an associate head coach role beginning with the 2022-23 season.
Ashcroft by the Numbers
• Has coached or assisted in coaching four NCAA Champions
• Has coached or assisted in coaching 46 All-Americans, including seven at Michigan
• Has coached or assisted in coaching 17 conference champions, including four at Michigan
AT MICHIGAN
• In the 2025 season, she coached graduate transfer John McNeil to a third-place finish in the high jump with personal best mark of 2.16m at the Big Ten Indoor Championships. At the Big Ten Outdoor Championships, graduate student Clare McNamara had an incredible performance in the heptathlon, setting six personal-best marks, including coming in at No. 3 on the program performers list in the heptathlon (5,698 points) and No. 2 in the javelin throw (51.54m), to qualify for the NCAA Outdoor Championships. At the NCAAs, she finished 20th and earned Honorable Mention All-America honors.
• In the 2024 season, she coached a pair of jumpers to the NCAA Outdoor Championships in Riley Ammenhauser (triple jump) and Jake Wall (long jump). Ammenhauser earned an 18th place finish (12.90m) and Wall earned a 23rd place finish (7.09m). Ammenhauser also set the outdoor triple jump record of 13.06m. Tianhao Wei advanced to the NCAA East Preliminary Round, seeing a personal best and No. mark in program history (15.75m) in the triple jump. Cate Visscher saw a seventh place finish at the Big Ten Outdoor Championships with a mark of 4.07m, making her just the sixth Wolverine on the women's team to clear 4.00m. Multi-event athletes Mia Manson and Clare McNamara both earned podium finishes in the heptathlon, with Manson finishing sixth and McNamara finishing eighth. Manson's 5,027 points is No. 9 on the program performers list while McNamara's high jump mark (1.63m) and heptathlon mark (4,907) both set the Maltese national standard.
• The 2023 season saw the U-M women sweep the Big Ten Indoor and Outdoor titles. Riley Ammenhauser won the Big Ten Indoor triple jump title, with Ammenhauser finishing third and Nadia Saunders finishing fifth in the triple jump at the Big Ten Outdoor Championships. Ammenhauser set the No. 4 program mark while Sanders set the No. 6 program mark, both in the triple jump. On the men's side, Berachiah Ajala finished fifth in the triple jump at the Big Ten Indoor Championships while Henry Sheldon and Cole Sheldon tied for ninth in pole vault at at the Big Ten Outdoor Championships.Â
• Ashcroft's jumpers, vaulters and combined-event athletes excelled during the 2022 campaign, accumulating school records in two events to go along with an NCAA Championships appearance and two Big Ten Championships medals. Jessica Mercier broke the indoor school record in the pole vault at 4.36m (14-3.5) to advance to the NCAA Indoor Championships. She led a vault group that was among the best in the nation, with three different women (Mercier, Mia Manson and Brooke Tjerrild) all breaking or claiming shares of the indoor (Mercier, Manson) or outdoor (Tjerrild) school record. She also guided Ameia Wilson to an indoor Big Ten silver medal in the long jump and Cassidy Henshaw to a bronze medal in the outdoor men's high jump, and mentored Bera Ajala to the England Athletics U23 triple jump title and Riley Ammenhauser to a third-place finish at the USATF U20 Championships in the triple jump.
• Ashcroft's student-athletes combined to earn three All-America honors and two Big Ten titles in 2021, to go along with three school records. Under her tutelage, Ayden Owens finished as the NCAA Outdoor runner-up and Big Ten champion in the decathlon with a school-record 8,238 points, and the bronze medalist at the NCAA Indoor heptathlon with a school-record 5,995 points. Owens accounted for just one of the six scoring finishes for Michigan combined-event athletes at Big Ten Championships, with both second-team All-American Heath Baldwin and Mason Mahacek scoring indoors and outdoors, and Theresa Mayanja scoring indoors. She also guided pole vaulter Jessica Mercier to the indoor Big Ten title and outdoor silver medal, and newcomer Mia Manson to fourth outdoors. Indoors, she guided Katt Miner to silver in the women's high jump and Jada Wimberly to seventh, Cassidy Henshaw to an eighth-place finish in the men's high jump . Outdoors, Miner was the bronze medalist in the high jump, and for the men Max Wagner was sixth in the high jump and Bera Ajala was seventh in the triple jump.
• Despite a 2020 track and field that was cut short due to the novel coronavirus COVID-19 global pandemic, Ashcroft's student-athletes excelled during the indoor season in which they were allowed to compete. her athletes scored in four different events, including a bronze medal in the high jump by Katt Miner -- who finished top-20 nationally and just missed qualification for the NCAA Indoor Championships. Ashcroft also mentored Max Wagner to a sixth-place finish in the men's high jump, guided a pair of freshmen in Mason Mahacek and Heath Baldwin to seventh- and eighth-place finishes in the heptathlon, and helped Daniel Butael to an eighth-place effort in the triple jump. Mahacek and Baldwin both exceeded the previous U-M freshman record in the heptathlon multiple times throughout the season.
• Her second season at Michigan in 2019 resulted in her first Michigan First-Team All-America honoree, as graduate transfer Jack Lint finished fourth at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in the decathlon. Lint was one of two Ashcroft charges -- freshman pole vaulter Jessica Mercier being the other -- who finished as silver medalists at the Big Ten Outdoor Championships. Mercier (fourth) and Lint (fifth) also scored for the Wolverines at the Big Ten Indoor Championships. She also guided Daniel Butael (triple jump) and Claire Kieffer-Wright (high jump) to Big Ten Championships scoring performances.
• In 2018 in her first season at Michigan, coached both Aaron Howell (heptathlon) and Claire Kieffer-Wright (high jump) to Second-Team All-America honors, and high jumper Brandon Piwinski to the NCAA Outdoor Championships. She also guided Kieffer-Wright to the Big Ten Indoor high jump title. She mentored triple jumper Kevin Stephens, Jr., to scoring performances at both the Big Ten Indoor and Outdoor Championships and to a berth at the NCAA East Prelims -- missing the NCAA Championships by just two spots -- and also guided high jumper Katt Miner to a scoring performance at Big Ten Outdoors and a berth to the NCAA East Prelims.
BEFORE MICHIGAN
Having most recently served as an assistant coach at Cal Poly (2013-17) for pole vaulters, high jumpers, throwers and combined-event athletes prior to her arrival at Michigan, her athletes excelled at both the conference and national levels.
Her final season at Cal Poly in 2017 saw her guide Teddy Scranton to the Big West title in the decathlon with the sixth-best score in school history at 7,143 points -- a nearly 1,100-point improvement during his four years under Ashcroft’s tutelage.
Scranton was a core member of Ashcroft’s quartet of Cal Poly decathletes that finished the 2016 season ranked No. 2 nationally (in terms of depth) in the Event Squad Rankings published by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA).
In 2013 she mentored John Prader to the No. 3 vault in the nation at 5.67m (18-7.25) en route to a Big West title in the event. During her tenure with the Mustangs, Ashcroft also guided high jumper Danielle Bryan to the NCAA Outdoor Championships in the high jump, and freshman javelinist Megan Mooney to the Big West title in her event.
Prior to her time in San Luis Obispo, Ashcroft served on the staff at Oregon (2007-12) led by USTFCCCA Hall of Famer and future USATF president Vin Lananna, first as a volunteer assistant before earning a job as a full-time coach in 2011. She showed great versatility in Eugene, overseeing the women’s pole vault and high jump while also assisting Lananna in the cross country and mid-distance disciplines.
That 2011 season was among the best of her career as she mentored Melissa Gergel to the NCAA Outdoor Championships pole vault title with a then-meet record-tying 4.45m (14-7.25) clearance to rank her No. 7 in collegiate history at the time. Her distance-running charges also racked up three national titles, with Jordan Hasay winning the mile and 3,000-meter races indoors and Anne Kesselring taking the outdoor 800-meter crown.
She began her coaching career at Wichita State (2003-06), first as a graduate assistant and then as a full-time assistant coach. Primarily responsible for the pole vault and horizontal jumps, her student-athletes claimed six Missouri Valley Conference titles and 26 all-conference honors, broke 11 school and seven MVC records, and four times appeared at the NCAA Championships.
Her long jumpers in particular achieved great success at Wichita State, combining for two conference titles and eight all-conference performances at the MVC level. Both Jelena Petrovic and Lindsay Eck won league titles and surpassed 20 feet during their time in Wichita, with the duo taking gold and silver, respectively at the 2005 MVC Outdoor Championships.
Ashcroft’s success as a coach flowed directly from her career as a standout pole vaulter at Nevada from 1999 through 2002. After winning her first conference title (Big West) in the pole vault and qualifying for the U.S. Olympic Trials in 2000, she followed that up with WAC conference pole vault titles in both 2001 and 2002. Ashcroft closed out her career with a seventh-place finish at the NCAA Outdoor Championships.
Off the runway, she was a three-time academic all-conference selection, an Academic All-American and the state of Nevada winner for the 2002 NCAA Woman of the Year award.
For all of her achievements, she was honored in 2012 with an induction into the 2012 Nevada Athletics Hall of Fame.
