The Hillsdale College women’s track team won first place in a tri-meet against Ashland University and University of Findlay.
With help from their freshmen, the Chargers dominated in most of their events scoring first through third allowing them to take the win. They also had two athletes earn their first career NCAA DII provisional qualifying marks.
Freshman Katie Clifford cleared 3.69 in pole vault in her second meet as a Charger, earning sixth place overall. Junior Nikita Maines earned second place in both weight throw and shot put, throwing for 17.73 meters and 13.85 in shot put. Freshman Katie Sayles placed fourth in weight throw with 17.11 meters.
Sophomore Emily Gerdin took second in triple jump with 11.32 meters and third in the long jump with 5.08 meters.
“I feel that Friday was a really good starting point for me,” Gerdin said. “I didn’t hit the marks I specifically wanted but that just drives me to work even harder for this coming week.”
Freshman Reagan Dahlquisrt placed third in the high jump with 1.63 meters, while freshman Louisa Klaserner earned second in the 60-meter hurdles with 9.28 and third in the 400 meter hurdles with 1:09.90.
“Something I’m trying to work on this year is building my confidence in my own event and my abilities as a hurdler,” Klaserner said. “I’ve been working a lot on my start and I thought it went a lot better.”
Four Chargers won events on the track, with freshman Liz Wamsley taking first in the mile run with a time of 5:13.22, a personal best by nearly 20 seconds. Junior Claire McNally won the 3,000 meter run with a time of 10:47.14, with junior Natalie Martinson and freshman Kayla Loescher close behind in third and fourth.
Hillsdale placed five runners in the top six for the 800 meter run, with sophomore Gwynne Riley, freshman Nicole Marshall, and sophomore Dakota Stamm in the top three with times of 2:20.02, 20:20.40, and 2:22.56 respectively. Senior Zalonya Eby won the 200 meter dash with 25.77, and the Chargers won the day with a score of 114, with Findlay in second with 106 and Ashland with 102.
Gerdin said she is excited for all the freshmen to compete this season.
“We have a lot of freshmen this year, all of whom bring a huge amount of talent so I’m excited to be able to compete with all of them,” Gerdin said.
The Chargers host the Hillsdale Winter Classic on Friday and Saturday, Jan. 21-22, with Friday holding the pentathlon and heptathlon and the rest of the meet on Saturday.
