Alex Mitchell and Richie Johnston have been the first two Chargers to finish both races this season. Courtesy | Hillsdale College Athletic Department
The Charger men’s cross country team took second place in Wayne State University’s Warrior Challenge at the Willow Metropark Sept. 15 in the Chargers first 8k of the year.
The Wayne State Warriors finished ahead of the Chargers with 21 points, while Hillsdale finished with 56. The Davenport University Panthers came in third place with 76 points.
Athletes from Wayne State finished in the top three positions, with the first place finisher crossing the line at 24 minutes and 59 seconds. Hillsdale senior Alex Mitchell finished fourth out of a total of 104 runners with a time of 25 minutes and23 seconds.
“I gave it a strong effort but wasn’t able to place as high as I would have hoped,” Mitchell said. “Two out of the three guys that beat me are All-Americans, so that makes it a little bit more bearable. I think I executed as well as I could have hoped to, but just didn’t quite have the ability on the day to perform as well as I would have liked.”
Following Mitchell for the Chargers was junior Richie Johnston who finished in eighth place at the 25:54 minute mark with a pace of 5:12 minutes per mile. Rounding out the top 10 was junior Donny McArdle who took tenth place right at the 26 minute mark.
“It felt really great to place in the top 10, especially considering we were racing with a few cross-country All-Americans from Wayne State,” Johnston said. “Running well individually and as a team gives me a lot of confidence, given it is still early in the season, so I am very excited to see what we can do this weekend in Lansing.”
The next Charger to cross the finish line was junior Ross Kuhn, whose finish of 26:12 minutes was good enough for fourteenth place overall.
“The race went decently. I was hoping for a quicker time but running my second fastest time this early in the season is a good sign,” Kuhn said. “We have been doing some pretty tough training so the wheels coming off around 6k is not something to be worried about.”
Freshman Caleb Youngstedt competed in his first collegiate 8k and took 20th overall with a time of 26:25 minutes. Youngstedt was followed by junior Micah Vanderkooi and senior Sean Hoeft, who finished 31st and 38th, respectively.
The first Charger sophomores to cross the finish line were Emil Schlueter and Seth Jankowski. Schlueter finished behind Hoeft in 45th place at the 27:19 minute mark, while Jankowski took 53rd overall at 27:44 minutes.
The Chargers will head to Lansing to compete in the Lansing Community College Invitational Sept. 22, followed by Lewis University’s Lewis Crossover in Romeoville, Illinois, Oct. 7.