The Hillsdale College men’s and women’s track and field teams broke school records, earned Division II national provisional marks, and set new personal bests at Friday and Saturday’s meets.
On Friday, several Chargers traveled to Grand Valley State University, where senior Kajsa Johansson, sophomore Dakota Stamm, freshman Shura Ermakov, and junior Alanna O’Leary broke a five-year old 4x400m relay school record last set at the 2015 DII Indoor National Championship. Their new time of 3:47.83 is currently the second-ranked time in the country for DII.
“We were talking about making the school record all week,” Johansson said. “That’s been a goal of ours, so that was a fun thing to accomplish.”
Johansson also broke one of her own school records for the second week in a row. She set a new 200 meter dash time of 24.30 seconds with the third fastest time in DII so far this year.
“I think the year has been so uncertain that it’s rewarding to see a lot of hard work pay off,” Johansson said.
Senior Calli Townsend raced the 800 meter run and finished in a personal-best 2:14.48, coming just short of a provisional mark. Fellow senior Maryssa Depies finished the mile in sixth at 4:54.4, setting a new personal best and earning a provisional qualifying mark.
“I was really excited about the results this weekend,” Depies said. “I went into the meet hoping to run faster in the mile than I previously have this year. Being able to do that was a huge accomplishment for me, and it gave me hope that I may be able to run even faster to qualify for nationals in the future.”
Freshmen Jamahl Burke and Sean Fagan teamed up with sophomores Benu Meintjes and Ian Calvert to run the men’s 4x400m relay. They added to the growing list of provisional marks when they took fourth in their event at 3:14.98. Their time currently ranks 10th in DII.
Fagan said while the team didn’t get the mark at the previous week’s meet, they still knew they were on the right track.
“It was really exciting,” Fagan said Friday. “We’ve been going after it.”
Burke took fourth in the 400 meter dash as well, finishing in 48.80 seconds, the second-fastest time set by a G-MAC runner this season. Meintjes came in fifth in the 400 meter dash with a new personal best of 49.26 seconds.
In the third-fastest time of the 60 meter hurdles this season, Fagan finished in fifth place with a time of 8.27 seconds.
“I’ve been stuck in the 8:30s all season, so I was really happy to get to 8:20s,” Fagan said.
Freshman Micah Vanderkooi joined his teammates in breaking previous personal bests, running a 1:54.75 in the 800 meter run.
At Saturday’s Oiler Invite at the University of Findlay, junior Nikita Maines claimed two first-place titles in shot put with a mark of 13.92 meters, and the weight throw with 16.83 meters.
Junior Claire McNally earned her first provisional mark of her career when she ran 17:18.62 in the 5000 meter race, placing 18th. Senior Christina Sawyer followed her in 22nd at 17:26.63 and sophomore Meg Scheske in 25th place at 17:46.48, a new personal best for Scheske.
Freshman Jossee Behling captured first in the 400 meter dash. She finished at 59.61 seconds and sophomore Judith Allison came in third at 59.98 seconds.
The men’s team won three individual titles at Findlay. Senior Adam Wade finished the 400 meter dash at 51.23 seconds, freshman Alex Mitchell ran 4:21.92 in the mile, and junior Ben Raffin won the pole vault with 4.90 meters.
Setting new personal bests, senior Mark Miller and sophomore Dylan Palmer took second and third in the 800 meter run at 1:56.73 and 1:57.78, respectively. Junior Adam Wier also finished at 15:05.68 in the 5000 meter race.
“We’re continuing to make progress,” said head coach Andrew Towne. “This weekend was our best meet to date. We’re looking forward to the next two weeks, as all of our goals are still accessible.”
The next competition will be Saturday’s Hillsdale Tune-Up meet on Feb. 19, which is the Chargers’ last meet before the G-MAC Championship at Cedarville University on Feb. 26 and 27.
