Ben Haas recorded the third-longest weight throw in DII nationwide at the conference meet last March. Courtesy | James Gensterblum
The Hillsdale men’s track team started the season with a slew of first-place finishes against Ashland and Findlay Jan. 12 as sophomore Ben Haas earned a provisional qualifying mark in weight throw.
Haas finished in first place in the weight throw with a mark of 20.18 meters. This mark was slightly shorter than his mark from December, which currently ranks second in the country.
On the track, senior Alex Mitchell placed third in the mile with a personal best time of 4 minutes and 20.41 seconds. Senior Sean Fagan won the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 8.50, and senior Drew Ransom placed first in the 200-meter dash with a time of 23.21.
“The team as a whole did well especially since we haven’t competed in 4 weeks,” senior Justin Doughty said.
Doughty placed fifth in the 400 with a time of 56.30, and sophomore Nathaniel Osborne placed eleventh in the mile with a time of 4:37.14.
“Our goal wasn’t to be super competitive,” Osborne said. “On the distance side, we didn’t have anything super impressive, but that wasn’t the goal.”
Sophomore Mark Masaka placed tenth in the mile with a time of 4:37.06. He said the team saw the meet as an opportunity to prepare for the more important competitions ahead.
“The goal was just to get back into competition, and we did that,” Masaka said. “I think we had a few people that did really well there. But it was probably about what we were expecting.”
The runners who competed in the mile worked on maintaining a good pace without pushing themselves to the limit, Osborne said.
“Our instruction for the first 800 to 1200 meters was to run fairly strong, nothing too bad, and then just kind of let loose through the end,” Osborne said.
For the men’s mile race, the Chargers also had multiple other runners finish in the top five, including junior Richie Johnston with a time of 4:20.61 and junior Ross Khun with a time of 4:25.44.
“I think the main thing for distance runners is this meet was essentially sort of a training meet. Almost everybody did the mile instead of doing their specialized event,” Masaka said. “We’ll start really getting into the thick of running after this meet on Friday, as preparation up till now has just been kind of like warm-up.”
“I think we’re looking pretty good, we’ve had some people that have had some really good performances, and I think that’s going to continue,” Osborne said.
The Chargers will host the Hillsdale Wide Track Classic, a tune-up meet, Jan. 27.
“Overall, as a team, we do have the ability to do something really well in our conference, if we just keep the trajectory we’ve been on since last semester,” Masaka said.
