The young Hillsdale College men's track team traveled to Grand Valley State University to compete in the Holiday Open. The team took 23rd out of 27 schools, several being Division I.
In his first attempt at the 5k indoors, junior Joey Humes beat the Division II provisional time of 14:41.13. He finished with a time of 14:25.16 to take 15th in a very competitive field of 67 runners.
Freshman Jacob Schmidt made his debut in the sprints. He took 20th in the 60 meter dash with a time of 7.07 and 10th in the 200 meter dash, finishing in 22.56. Over 50 athletes competed in each of these events.
Senior Nathan Pando earned 8th in the 200m dash with a time of 22.48. He also finished right next to fellow senior Levi Wyse in the 60 meter dash. The two took 26th and 27th, respectively. Pando finished in 7.14 and Wyse in 7.16.
Hillsdale's 1600 meter relay team took seventh out of 19 schools, finishing in 3:23.41. All ages were represented by this team, starting with Wyse. The baton was passed along to sophomore Adam Wade, then to freshman Peter Curtis and finished by junior David Downey.
In the field events, Downey competed in long jump. He earned 22nd out of 32 athletes, with a jump of 6.16 meters. In the shot put, freshmen Nolan Sullivan and Kai Panethiere took 22nd and 23rd, respectively. Sullivan threw for 11.49 meters and Panethiere threw for 11.24. Freshman Chris Huffman took 15th out of 29 athletes in the weight throw, throwing for 15.53 meters.
While these Chargers were competing at Grand Valley, two heptathletes traveled to Saginaw Valley State University. Sophomore Ryan Thomsen took third overall with 3490 points. Right behind him was freshman John Baldwin in fourth with 3441 points.
The two took second and third in the 60 meter hurdles. Baldwin finished with a time of 8.61 and Thomsen right behind in 8.82. They were right together in the long jump as well. Baldwin jumped for 6.63 meters to take third and Thomsen took fourth with 6.60 meters. Thomsen a lot of his points in the high jump, taking third with a height of 1.96 meters.
PHOTO: Carly Gouge
WORDS: Calli Townsend