A strong final day helped the Hillsdale College men's track and field team jump from sixth to fourth in the standings and match their finish from the previous year at this weekend's G-MAC Indoor Championships hosted by Findlay.
The Chargers finished with 75.5 points, leaping past Walsh and Cedarville and into fourth place. Host Findlay won the meet with 148.5 points.
Hillsdale's effort was led by freshman Sean Fagan, who won his first individual G-MAC title by taking home the 60 meter hurdles crown in 8.29 seconds. It's a big step for the second-year Charger athlete, who took second in the event last season and had to fend off strong competition from an elite Ashland hurdles crew to win the crown this year.
The Chargers also got a huge personal best from freshman Cass Dobrowolski in the high jump to take second, as Dobrowolski cleared 2.05 meters to achieve his first ever NCAA Provisional Qualifying mark. The freshman's jump is currently tied for 29th in the country at the NCAA Division II level.
Teammate Charlie Andrews tied for fifth in the high jump as well for Hillsdale (1.94 meters), while sophomore Joshua Nichols took runner-up honors in the triple jump with a huge personal best of 14.16 meters as well for the Chargers.
Hillsdale got a third runner-up finish from it's 4x400m relay team of Maliq Brock, Jamahl Burke, Ian Calvert and Benu Meintjes, who took second in an extremely tight race with a team from Findlay and finished in 3:21.39.
Both Meintjes and Burke also placed in the open 400m dash, with Meintjes taking third overall in 49.75, his best time of the season, and Burke finishing seventh in 50.60.
Hillsdale had three placers in the 800m run, led by freshman Ross Kuhn, who finished fourth in 1:55.77. Less than three-hundredths of a second behind Kuhn was Calvert (1:55.80), who added a fifth place finish in the 800 to his 4x400 placement. Sophomore Sean Hoeft took seventh in 1:56.60 as well for Hillsdale.
Freshman Oliver Samuelsson ran a time of 22.32 to take fourth in the 200m dash as well for Hillsdale, freshman Alex Mitchell took sixth in the 3,000m run (8:33.44) and Richie Johnston placed seventh in the mile (4:20.98) to round out scoring athletes for Hillsdale at the G-MAC Championships.
Next on the calendar for the Chargers is the NCAA Division II Indoor National Championships, on March 11 and 12 in Pittsburgh, Kansas. Hillsdale expects to be represented by Ben Raffin in the pole vault, who was an All-American at the 2021 Indoor Nationals last season and will be attempting to repeat that honor this year. For the rest of the team, the focus now turns to the outdoor season, and building toward an even stronger performance at the G-MAC Outdoor Championships in May.
Photo Courtesy of Findlay Athletics