The Hillsdale College men’s track and field earned its first NCAA DII provisional qualifying mark of the season in a home tri-meet against the defending DII Outdoor champion Ashland University and Findlay University.
Freshman thrower Ben Haas had his furthest throw in the weight throw on Friday, notching 18.84 meters to take third place. This mark gave the Chargers their first NCAA provisional qualifying mark of the season.
“It feels great being the first provisional mark on the team,” Haas said. “But I know that there are plenty of my teammates who are also competing at the National standard and there will be more to come.”
After only two meets as a Charger, Haas earned G-MAC Men’s Field Athlete of the Week.
“In my first two meets I performed much better than I expected when I first came to Hillsdale,” Haas said. “I think that the key to my success is that I am confident in my abilities, and I just show up to the meets to have fun and throw as far as I can.”
2021 All-American senior Ben Raffin won the pole vault title with 4.68 meters and sophomore Josh Nichols won the triple jump with 13.83 meters.
“My jumps weren’t anything special and I didn’t really care about placement, I was just focused on form and technique,” Nichols said.
Nichols said he has two goals by the end of the indoor season.
“My goals are to hit provisional in indoor in triple jump, which is 14.44 and I would like to hit 6.80 in long jump,” Nichols said.
Several Chargers placed during the weekend, with Nichols getting fourth in the long jump, freshman Cass Dobrowolski earning fourth in the high jump and sixth in the long jump, with sophomore Charlie Andrews grabbing sixth in the high jump.
Freshman Ross Kuhn was one of three Chargers in the top six for the 800 meter run. Kuhn took second with a personal-best 1:58.20, with senior Mark Miller in fifth with 1:59.40 and sophomore Benu Meintjes in sixth with a time of 1:59.41.
Sophomore Alex Mitchell and freshman Donnie McArdle took second and third in the 3,000 meter run with times of 8:51.17 and 8:57.34 respectively. Junior Isaac Waffle won the 400 meter hurdles and earned fifth in the mile run.
For the weekend, the Chargers got 82.5 points, good enough for second behind Ashland’s 148.50. Findlay took third with 76 points.
“Ashland is obviously the team to beat in the conference at the moment, and I think the team did well overall going up against them, especially since it was our season opener and we have a long way to go until conference,” Nichols said.
The Chargers now host the Hillsdale Winter Classic on Friday and Saturday, Jan. 21-22.
