The Hillsdale College men's track team saw great competition and made great progress at the GVSU Open tonight.
Facing an impressive array of opponents, the Chargersd finished third as a team with 46 points. The host Lakers took first with 149, followed by Bethel, who had 127.5.
To start things off on the track, freshman sprinter Jacob Schmidt raced his way to seventh place in the 60m dash. He finished in 7.00 seconds, just .01 seconds short of his personal record. Then fought hard in the 200m dash for a new personal record: 22.39 seconds, taking fourth place.
In the 60m hurdles freshman John Baldwin and junior Ian Brown qualified for finals, taking fourth and eighth, respectively. Despite his fourth place finish in the final, Baldwin ran an even faster time in prelims: 8.38 seconds, a new personal record. Brown finished the race in 8.69 seconds.
In the 800m run sophomore Adam Wade ran a season-best time of 1:57.75 to take 12th overall.
The distance crew represented Hillsdale well in the mile, 3000m run and 5000m run. The 5k was led by senior Eli Poth. He finished ninth overall with an indoor personal record of 15:34. Freshman Adam Weir had a strong kick to take 10th place with a time of 15:36. And in his first indoor 5k race, sophomore Eric Poth took 13th in 15:53.
Juniors Joseph Humes and Alex Oquist each shaved significant time off of their 3k personal records. Humes won the race to earn an NCAA Division II provisional time of 8:18, and Oquist finished in ninth in 8:40, which is 14 seconds faster than his previous record.
And in the mile, freshman Mark Miller finished in third with sophomore teammate Jack Shelley in eighth place. The two ran 4:15.46 and 4:19.42, respectively. Miller's time was a seven-second personal record.
In the field events, Baldwin earned himself another personal best in long jump. He took fifth overall with a jump of 6.73 meters. Fellow freshman Ben Raffin remained consistent in pole vault, taking third place with a vault of 4.72 meters.
The Chargers finished the meet strong and competitive in the 4x400 meter relay. The relay was made of Schmidt, Wade, Baldwin and senior Levi Wyse. They finished in a very close third place with a season-best time of 3:22.37.
PHOTO: Todd Lancaster
WORDS: Calli Townsend