For the third week in a row, Hillsdale’s women’s weight throw team is ranked first nationally in NCAA Division II. Hillsdale’s women’s track and field team is still ranked third overall in the NCAA DII Midwest region.

This weekend, the Chargers split up and competed in two different meets. The distance runners and jumpers competed at Grand Valley State University, while the throwers and sprinters competed at Tiffin University.

The women’s distance medley relay team, which ran at GVSU on Feb. 11, took second place with a time of 11:36. The team includes juniors Gwynne Riley and Meg Scheske, and sophomores Shura Ermakov and Reese Dragovich. 

Scheske said the DMR team improved their time.

“We bettered our mark by five seconds, and we hopefully secured our spot to nationals in March,” Scheske said. “This will be mine, Gwynne, and Reese’s, all of our first time at indoor nationals. We didn’t make it last year in the DMR and so we came back guns blazing this season, really trying to make it in the DMR.”

Scheske said her performance during the DMR surprised her.

“I was surprised by how strong I felt during my race,” Scheske said. “A lot of times the 1600 meter goes by really quick and very tiring. I just felt very in control the whole time. I was also surprised by how much of a lead on all but one of the teams that my teammates had made.”

Junior Louisa Klaserner, who competed at Tiffin on Feb. 11, took second in the 60m hurdles with a time of 9.07 seconds.

“I’m a 60 meter hurdler during the indoor season and it’s kind of funny, but I feel like whenever I run a good race it feels very effortless and I don’t really even remember the race itself,” Klaserner said. “So this weekend felt like my races were very effortless. There was a point during the quick race when I could hear my dad cheering for me in the stands and that was very encouraging to hear during my nine second race.”

Other standout athletes from this weekend include freshman Lucy Minning, who took second in the 60m; sophomore Averi Parker, who took first in women’s shot put; and junior Katie Weldy, who took second in women’s weight throw.

Klaserner said the track and field team is looking forward to conferences.

“We call the weeks leading up to the championship ‘conference season,’ which always gets everyone excited,” Klaserner said. “I think we know exactly what we need to do next week and it seems like everyone’s starting to hit some really awesome marks to put us in a good spot in the G-MAC.”