The Charger football team will show off its incoming class at Sunday’s spring game at 1 p.m. with a presentation at halftime. In addition to football, the three other fall sports teams (tennis, volleyball, cross country) have already signed student-athletes to compete at Hillsdale. Some teams are still looking to add more to its 2013 roster.
For the volleyball team, recruiting for this fall has been in the works for years. Girls are recruited from all over the country starting when they are 15 and 16 years old. The team already has two girls committed for the fall 2014 season, and they are currently working on setting up their 2015 and 2016 teams, head coach Chris Gravel said.
“Our timeline is probably earlier than anyone else’s around here, and I don’t necessarily like that, but that’s the way the volleyball world works,” Gravel said. “Asking 15- and 16-year-olds to make a college decision is hard, but Michigan and Michigan State and Penn State are doing that so I have to at least be ready to commit.”
A big recruiting tool that Gravel uses is having the team host summer camps. The camp is in July and high school aged-girls interested in playing at Hillsdale in the future are encouraged to attend.
In addition to allowing Gravel to watch the players for four days of playing rather than a game at a tournament or watching DVDs, both of which he also does, the players are able to get acquainted with the college.
“I didn’t even come on an official visit, I just came to camp,” freshman middle hitter Sam Siddall said. “I was here for four days so I got a feel for the campus and I had a lot of fun playing with the team, and I was able to see how well they worked with each other.”
This fall, the team is welcoming three new players.
“One’s a 6’ setter, one’s a 5’11” hitter and the other is a 6’1” hitter so I think they’ll be fine,” Gravel said.
Since the team only has one senior leaving this year due to circumstances that have caused older girls to redshirt, the team will be larger than normal.
“A bigger team will be good because it creates competition for each position, so we’ll have to push every day to play our best,” senior middle hitter Lindsay Kostrzewa said.
For the men’s and women’s cross country teams, the NCAA rules on recruiting have changed this year.
While the NCAA still mandates that all Division II athletes can only be on official school visits for 48 hours, they have moved back the date when coaches can start contacting runners from the end of their junior year to the end of their sophomore year.
“We will still try to keep our process about a year because it just complicates things for them when it’s too long,” Towne said. “Right now we’re contacting juniors. We’ll get three to four phone calls in to them before summer and invite them on tours in the fall when they’re seniors.”
The cross country team recruits girls who run track as well as cross country and they typically recruit from a 250 mile radius from Hillsdale, Towne said.
So far, the women’s cross country team has only signed one runner, Michigan native Julia Bos, but Towne and her future teammates are excited about her joining the team.
“She aligns with the school really well and she’s one of the best distance runners in America, so she’ll make a big impact,” Towne said.
Captain of the cross country team junior Victoria McCaffrey said that Bos is “faster than any of us on the team” and that the team will be “a fearsome group next year.”
Towne said the team will look to sign three to five more cross country runners this spring.
For the men’s cross country team, considering that none of the current runners are graduating, this fall’s class will definitely enlarge the team.
Head coach Jeff Forino said that so far, they have three guys signed, are waiting on a couple more, and have commitments from three or four preferred walk-ons for the upcoming fall season.
Forino said that all of the guys on the cross country team also participate in track, and because of the new Bierman Athletic Center, he can recruit more guys.
“With the new indoor facility, we can have about seven home meet opportunities, where before, we could only have one. So if guys didn’t make the travel team, they only had one home meet. Now they’ll have more opportunities and it won’t cost us as much in travel,” Forino said.
In terms of grades and ACT scores, Forino said that they are typically not an issue because their recruits normally meet or exceed Hillsdale College’s academic standards.
“Most cross country runners align great with the school,” Forino said. “They have disciplined lifestyles. They get up every day and run, and sometimes they run twice a day. We don’t worry about the distance runners; they are usually the overachievers. They are motivated people and they are very good schedule-wise and work hard all of the time.”
Forino said that when the distance runners come to visit the school, he has them stay with guys on the team so they can answer their questions about Hillsdale.
“They always ask what it’s like to be a full time student here and do a Division II sport, and our guys understand that and can answer their questions.”
Sophomore Kevin Frost said that his visit to Hillsdale made a positive impact on his college decision.
“I hung out with the guys and went bowling and I just had a ton of fun. I could see myself hanging out with the guys in the future, and I felt really comfortable with the coaches,” Frost said.
Frost has hosted multiple recruits this year and said that all of his teammates are always willing to host.
“We’ll go out to dinner to Johnny T’s or Saucy Dogs with the team and Coach. Coach pays for the host’s dinner, so there’s kind of competition for who gets to host them,” Frost said.
As for the tennis team, head coach Nicole Walbright said that she has signed three girls for the fall season, one Michigan native, and two girls from Florida.
Walbright said that she recruits players from all over the country.
“I reach out to girls in Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana, and for girls out of state, they usually will contact me,” Walbright said. “I use a combo of looking at online tennis resources to look up records and ratings on each recruit. I also watch skills videos if they send one in, or travel to tournaments to watch them play.”
Walbright said that if she thinks a girl would be a good fit, she will invite them to Hillsdale for an official campus visit.
“On a campus visit, they’ll take a tour, have lunch with the team and a meeting with me,” Walbright said. “The ones I see as good fits will stay overnight to get a feel for campus life and how Hillsdale is before they commit. Normally we’ll have a whole team activity where they will take her to a football game or other sporting event so they can get to meet and hang out with everyone.”
With the three additions, the team will stay around the same size, which is nine to ten players, but will add depth and strength to the team.
“We have a really strong line up as it is, what we lack is good depth. We have a very intense schedule with the amount of matches we play in a short time, so the additions will allow rest for others girls. I’ll be able to give a day rest, so in that way it’ll add to the strength of our line up,” Walbright said. “I only see things getting better for the coming season.”