Courtesy: Hillsdale Athletic Department
The Hillsdale track and field team kicked off its 2025-26 indoor season at the Grand Valley State University Holiday Open Dec. 5, with freshman Anna Roessner making her collegiate debut in the 60-meter dash, breaking the program and the Great Midwest Athletic Conference records.
Roessner ran a time of 7.36 in preliminaries, breaking the school record of 7.58 set by senior Lucy Minning in 2025 and the G-MAC record of 7.41. Roessner went on to win the event with a time of 7.41 in finals.
“Having an amazing team that supports each other definitely gave me confidence going into the first meet,” Roessner said. “I knew no one was putting pressure on me, and that allowed me to just do my thing and see what happened.”
For the men’s sprinters, freshman Watson Magwenzi became the 11th Charger to race under seven seconds in the 60-meter dash with a time of 6.99.
Seniors Gabriel Phillips and Zealand Tarrant also had successful races, running 14:30.62 in the 5K and 49.77 in the 400-meter respectively, boasting personal bests in their events.
On the field side, sophomore Amelia Lutz returned from a redshirt season and broke the school record in the shot put with a throw of 15.64 meters. Senior Ben Haas and sophomore Dominic Scharer set provisional marks in shot put with a 17.24 meters and 14.99 meters throw respectively.
Lutz said her success at Grand Valley was due to her off season training from the end of last season to now.
“I voluntarily stayed in Hillsdale over the summer, which allowed me to lift efficiently and practice every day,” Lutz said. “I really focused on my nutrition and outlined my goals for this year, and I tried to make every practice as intentional as I could with those goals in mind.”
Hillsdale also had success in the weight throw competition. On the men’s team, Haas, Scharer, and junior Dimitry Ermakov each set a provisional mark in their throws, and on the women’s team, junior Olivia Newsome and sophomore Tori Tyo both set a provisional mark.
The final provisional mark was achieved by outdoor All-America senior Tara Townsend in the pole vault. Townsend cleared 3.72 meters and secured a third-place finish in the event.
A week later, Townsend attended the Akron Haynes Lancaster Open in Akron, Ohio, and set a personal best clearance of 4.20 meters. Townsend’s performance broke the G-MAC record in the event and pushed her into the top spot in the nation in the event for NCAA Division II.
Townsend said her PR was a miracle, given it happened right after the chaos of finals week, but she said that putting her trust in assistant coach Justin Fawley allowed her to perform the way she did.
“I had to rely pretty much entirely on coach Fawley’s faith in my ability to perform better than I did at Grand Valley, so I just threw every doubt and worry aside and tried to have fun and do the best I could given the circumstances,” Townsend said. “It also helped that my teammate, sophomore Baelyn Zitzmann, was there to cheer me on the whole time.”
The Hillsdale track and field team will travel to Akron, Ohio, on Jan. 16 to compete in the AI Campbell Invite.
