The Hillsdale College Chargers finished fourth at the Midwest Regional meet on Saturday in Evansville, Indiana. They just missed the automatic qualifying mark for the NCAA Division II national meet, but they received an at-large bid to earn a spot. This keeps the Chargers’ nationals-qualifying streak alive, making it or their seventh year in a row.
Grand Valley State University, last year’s Division II national champion, captured first in the Midwest region with just 40 points, while Michigan Tech took a surprising second place with 146 points. G-MAC Rival Walsh University just clipped the Chargers, finishing with 155 points to Hillsdale’s 156.
“Nobody was sick or nobody had any injuries and nobody fell, so it was just kind of a mixed bag of results,” assistant coach R.P. White said. “A couple of our really important pieces had some off days and that’s just the way it shook out.”
White said that despite the off-day for his team, he still sees great potential for the national meet.
“I think that should give us a lot of confidence though,” White said. “Having a couple of our best runners have days like the did and for us to still be in fourth by one to Walsh. You plug those girls back in and it’s not even close.”
Senior Arena Lewis has remained consistent all season and continued to lead her team in the regional meet. She finished 14th overall with a time of 21:26.9.
With a new personal best time, junior Christina Sawyer finished in 21:48.2 to take 28th. Sophomore Claire McNally finished nearby in 32nd in 21:55.0, nearly tying her personal best time of 21:56.0.
“Our region’s very competitive year, so it was a quick race,” Sawyer said. “There was a lot of very strong runners up front vying for position, definitely more than the last two previous years at this meet. But I felt good during the race, definitely the best I’ve felt all year.”
While most regions will send three or four teams to the national meet, the eight Midwest teams qualified, making it the strongest region in the country. Six runners from the Midwest region also qualified as individuals, which was the most out of any other region as well.
Freshmen Gywnne Riley and Meg Scheske finished strong in the biggest race of their college careers thus far. Riley, coming off a fantastic race at the conference meet two weeks ago, finished in 22:06.6 to take 39th overall. Scheske finished 45th with a time of 22:15.9.
Sophomore Sophia Maeda came in 52nd with a time of 22:25.7, while junior Maryssa Depies finished right behind in 55th in 22:29.5.
“Our mentality moving forward is just to try to run our best race at the end of the season, and thankfully we get the opportunity to do that,” White said.
Sawyer said the Chargers are looking forward to another opportunity to compete and run their best races of the season.
“As a team, we had some good things and we had some bad things, but I think we are in a very good spot going into nationals,” she said. ”Everyone has pretty much had an exceptional race either at conference or at regionals, so we know we’re fit. Everything all season had been focused on nationals, so that is where we’re going to be ready to have our best race all around.”
The Chargers will continue to train and prepare to travel to Sacramento, California for the NCAA Division II National meet on Nov. 23. The 6k race will be at the Arcade Creek Cross Country Course at Haggin Oaks.