All-Minnesota Boys Track and Field Athlete of the Year: Rochester Century’s Joshua Kyei-Baffour

Ask Joshua Kyei-Baffour two years ago, and he would have told you he was a soccer player.

And he is — a good one, at that.

The 6-3 Rochester Century senior was a shutdown centerback for the Panthers and Twin Cities club soccer teams. Track, specifically the hurdles, was something he did to stay in shape for playing soccer at the next level.

Century track and field head coach Eric Gahr recalled the start of Kyei-Baffour’s junior track season, when the hurdler didn’t show up to the spring’s first practice.

“I was planning on quitting track,” Kyei-Baffour said. “My life was basically soccer all the time.”

But new hurdles coach Reid Pierzinski, also Kyei-Baffour’s math teacher, insisted the junior had nothing to lose. He had the height, the strength, and great form. He could find a way to work with his coaches and balance important track meets with club soccer matches.

“He saw something in me,” Kyei-Baffour said. “Then I started [setting personal bests], and I was like ‘Maybe this isn’t a coincidence.’ ”

As a senior, Kyei-Baffour blossomed into the best 110-meter hurdler in Minnesota history. At the Class 3A, Section 1 championships on May 31, he set an all-time record in the event (13.58 seconds). He won the 3A state title almost two weeks later.

Next year, he will hurdle for North Dakota State.

St. Croix Lutheran’s Jon Tollefson set the prior record, 13.66 seconds, in 2015. With his record-setting section championship race, Kyei-Baffour is one of only eight high school runners in Minnesota to have broken 14 seconds in the event, according to MNPrepTrack.

“My start went really well [at sections], my race was even better,” Kyei-Baffour said. “One of my teammates was in the infield, and I didn’t see the time [on the Jumbotron], and then he yelled at me to look.”

“I kind of, you know, went crazy.”

Kyei-Baffour, a 2025 Minnesota Mr. Track and Field finalist, didn’t lose a 110m hurdle race all season — especially impressive in an event where a lagging trail leg or bumped shoulder can force a runner to hit a hurdle and lose precious milliseconds. That’s what happened to Kyei-Baffour at state last year, when he finished fourth.

This year, despite a steady rain at the 3A finals at St. Michael-Albertville High School, it was smooth sailing over the hurdles. Kyei-Baffour won his state title in 13.94 seconds, nearly a half-second ahead of second place. He spent most of this season working with Pierzinski to improve his reaction time off the blocks.

“We just had to fix our communication [about scheduling] ... and it worked out great,” Gahr said. “Then it was just lights out from there, he turned it on, he got obsessed over it, and rest is history.”