The goal in every track and field season at the collegiate level is to be performing your best when championship season roll around.
Several athletes on the Hillsdale College men's track and field team did just that on Friday, capping the 2023 G-MAC Outdoor Championships in Ashland, Ohio with season best performances.
As a team, the Chargers finished sixth overall in one of the deepest track conferences in NCAA DII, scoring 60 points. Tiffin brought home the team title, beating out Findlay for first place.
Hillsdale had a strong final day in the hurdles. Junior Sean Fagan ran season bests in both the 110 and 400m hurdles to place for the Chargers, taking runner-up in the 400m hurdles in a time of 52.50 that improves his NCAA DII Provisional qualifying time and moves him up to 20th in the nation at the NCAA DII level in the event.
Fagan also took third in the 110 hurdles with a time of 14.61, while freshman teammate Colsen Conway also placed in both events, taking seventh in the 110 hurdles in a personal best time of 14.98 and eighth in the 400m hurdles in a time of 1:01.07.
Hillsdale also placed in two relays. Fagan teamed up with Benu Meintjes, Joseph Ritzer and Ian Calvert to place eighth in the 4x400m relay with a time of 3:23.47, and Ritzer was a part of Hillsdale 4x100m relay team along with Jacob Schmidt, Maliq Brock and Owen Gardner that took seventh with a time of 42.41. Meintjes also placed fifth in the 400m dash with a time of 48.73 for Hillsdale.
In the field, sophomore Alfonso Garcia used a big personal best in the triple jump to take sixth place, with a distance of 13.64 meters, and freshman Connor McCormick also placed sixth in the pole vault with a clearance of 4.71 meters.
With the conference championship meet out of the way, Hillsdale now turns its focus to the NCAA DII Outdoor Championships and one final week of Last Chance Meets as the Chargers look to qualify as many athletes as possible to send out to Pueblo, Colorado for the three-day event beginning on May 26. Hillsdale has several athletes who currently reside on the qualifying bubble and who will look to solidify their place over the next eight days as Hillsdale travels across the midwest to a variety of meets to give them the chance.
Photo by Michael Hopkins