The Hillsdale College women's track and field team kicked off a busy weekend of meets on Tuesday at Grand Valley State University as several Charger athletes look to make a final push toward national meet qualification in a series of Last Chance meets.
Hillsdale's throwers made the trip to Allendale, the site of the NCAA DII Outdoor Championships at the end of May, to try and firm up their marks ahead of the selection of the national championship field next week.
The biggest mover was sophomore Eden Little, who broke her own school record in the javelin and bettered her NCAA DII provisional mark by over a meter with a winning throw of 44.38 meters on Tuesday. That mark currently ranks 20th in the nation among NCAA DII javelin throwers -- not quite enough to get her to nationals, but enough to put her very much within striking distance with at least one more chance to come later in the week.
Fellow sophomore Peyton Panka took runner-up in the javelin with a throw of 41.04 meters as well. In the shot put, junior Nikita Maines won the competition with a throw of 14.87 meters in a final tune-up before the selection, while sophomore Juliet Bernard took fifth in the hammer throw with a mark of 50.21 meters.
The Chargers have three more meets this week -- at Oakland University on Thursday, Baldwin-Wallace on Friday and Lee University on Saturday -- to try and put down marks, with track athletes and field event athletes in the jumps getting involved later in the week.
Photo Courtesy of Kentucky Wesleyan Athletics