2021 G-MAC Outdoor Track and Field All-Conference honorees
Having wrapped up a successful spring 2021 campaign, eight Charger men's track and field athletes earned All-Great Midwest Athletic Conference honors for their performances during the outdoor season.
Two first-teamers led the way for the Chargers – sophomore Ben Raffin and freshman Micah Vanderkooi.
Raffin was named to the first team after winning the outdoor G-MAC title in the pole vault on May 6 in Owensboro, Kentucky with a personal-best clearance of 5.13 meters. This accomplishment adds to a season where the Chesterton, Indiana native earned NCAA DII All-American honors both indoors, with a seventh-place finish at the DII Championships in March, and outdoors, with an eighth-place finish at the DII Championships in May.
Vanderkooi also captured the G-MAC title in the 800 meter dash at the outdoor championship meet, in a time of 1:54.83, to cap his first season as a Charger with All-G-MAC honors.
Earning second team honors for Hillsdale were the members of the Chargers' 4x100m relay team – junior Jacob Schmidt, senior Ian Brown and freshmen Jamahl Burke and Dagur Andri Einarsson – who combined to earn runner-up honors in the relay race at the conference meet (42.05).
Two Charger men earned third-team honors as well from the G-MAC. Freshman Sean Fagan finished third in the 400m hurdles at the conference meet to receive the honor, in 53.48, and fellow freshman Joshua Nichols took third in the triple jump at the G-MAC Championships with a new personal-best mark of 13.83 meters.
While Brown graduates, the remaining Chargers are slated to return for the 2021-22 season, giving Hillsdale a strong core for the upcoming indoor and outdoor track campaigns.