For most of the college track and field athletes across the country, focus is already shifting to the outdoor season later this month.
But for a select few -- the best of the best -- the indoor track journey continues with a chance to bring home All-American honors, and potentially, a national title.
Five hundred and forty of the nation's best athletes at the NCAA Division II level descend on the Robert W. Plaster Center in Pittsburg, Kansas to compete in the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships on Friday and Saturday, March 11 and 12, and four athletes from Hillsdale are among their number.
Leading the way for Hillsdale are three qualifiers from the Chargers' women's throws crew, one that established itself as one of the best in the country this season. Among all the NCAA Division II women's track and field programs in the country, only Hillsdale and Minnesota St.-Mankato qualified multiple athletes for the DII Championships in both contested throwing events.
Junior Nikita Maines qualified to her third NCAA DII Indoor meet, previously earning qualifying bids for the 2020 event that was cancelled due to Covid-19, and the 2021 event held last year, where she finished 11th in the shot put. This year, Maines made it in the shot put for the third time, and earned her first ever qualification in the weight throw as well as she looks to earn the first All-American honor of her career. She comes in as a contender in both the shot put, where she's seeded sixth in the nation with a top throw of 15.16 meters, and in the weight throw, where she's also seeded sixth with a throw of 19.69 meters. Maines is the record-holder at Hillsdale in both the indoor and outdoor shot put, and enters the meet having just won the G-MAC title in the weight throw with a G-MAC indoor championship record mark.
Maines is joined in the weight throw by freshman Katie Sayles, who gives the Chargers two of the top six seeds in next week's event. Sayles' Hillsdale and G-MAC record-setting throw of 20.07 meters at the Hillsdale Tune-Up Invite on Feb. 19 is the third-best throw in the country this year, and marks her as a serious contender for the national title next week if she can replicate that attempt in Kansas.
In the shot put, freshman Averi Parker joins Maines in the competition. Parker made an instant impact in her first meet at Hillsdale, throwing a distance of 14.77 meters in the shot put that spent the entire season as one of the top marks in the country and has her entering this weekend's meet as the 13th seed. As a first-year competitor, Parker will get the opportunity to earn valuable experience on the national level while competing for All-American honors.
On the men's side, Hillsdale is represented once again by junior Ben Raffin in the pole vault, as Raffin makes his second appearance at the indoor national meet. In 2021, Raffin was a two-time All-American in the pole vault, finishing seventh in the nation in the event at the Indoor Championships, and placing eighth in the Outdoor Championships as well. Seeded 15th after clearing 5.01 meters in the 2022 season, Raffin will look to once again beat the odds and earn the third All-American honor of his career.
For Hillsdale, the action starts on Friday at 5:55 p.m. ET with the women's weight throw competition, as Maines and Sayles aim for the top. On Saturday, Raffin competes in the men's pole vault at 5 p.m., while Maines and Parker compete in the shot put at 6:35 p.m.
You can get live results from the meet from Leone Timing at this link, and the meet also will be streamed live on NCAA.com on both days of the action.
Photo Courtesy of Cedarville Athletics