Great Midwest Men's Records (PDF)
Great Midwest Women's Records (PDF)
Heat Sheets (PDF)
Live Video
Live Results
INDIANAPOLIS – Auto qualifiers, provisional setters and record breakers, are bringing their talents to Findlay’s Robert A. Malcolm Athletic Center for the Great Midwest Athletic Conference Indoor Track & Field Championships this weekend.
Eleven different conference records have been shattered already on the men’s side while three standards have been broken in women’s competition.
Friday and Saturday promises to break more conference meet bests as sprinters, jumpers, throwers and distance runners, take aim at the record books.
Findlay is the defending conference champion for the men while Hillsdale is striving to repeat as the women’s team champion. Last year’s conference indoor meet was conducted at Hillsdale in the Biermann Center.
The multis will get things going on Friday for the two-day event. The Great Midwest Digital Network will carry the event on compatible streaming devices and live results will also be available from the timing company.
Men
The Oilers are No. 11 in the most recent USTFCCCA Ratings Index. Tiffin, a program with national championship pedigree and experience, is tops among all Great Midwest programs at No. 4 in the country. The Dragons sprints/hurdles units are scary with Lamar Hargrove, Errik Snell, Drew Hickman, Tajarie Arthurton, Jonte Baker, Elijah Gauldin and others, playing a starring role.
Those guys alone have been responsible for new conference records in 60-meter dash (Hargrove) and 4x400 relay (Hickman, Hargrove) and plenty of other top-10 marks in conference history.
This is Tiffin’s first year with the league and Findlay, despite the graduation of NCAA qualifier Trey Everett, has plenty of talent to compete. Freshman Xavier Marable just clocked the league’s best 400-meter dash time of the season.
Defending weight throw national champion Austin Combs just broke his own conference record and sophomore Martin Etsey is currently ranked No. 2 nationally in the triple jump. Hulking senior thrower Eldred Henry is tops in the DII (14th overall including Division I) ranks for the 2018-19 season.
All three have punched their tickets to Pittsburg, Kan., to the NCAA DII Indoor Championships.
Walsh freshman Josh Conrad just set the conference record in the 800-meter run last weekend and some notable distance runners like George McCartney (Malone), Joseph Humes (Hillsdale) will headline the field of strong competitors.
Cedarville’s Tommy Ansiel and Tiffin’s Davis Bowers have been back and forth trading for the top spot in the pole vault this year. Ansiel currently has the pole position and is one of just four in DII to auto qualify for nationals.
Malone’s speedy Ashton Dulin, a two-sport standout in its purest form, will not be competing in this year’s conference championship meet because of his participation in the NFL Combine.
Women
The graduation of All-Americans Sarah Berger from Walsh and Hannah McIntyre (3K, 5K record holder) from Hillsdale with the transfer of national champion Janelle Perry (formerly of Ursuline), has set the stage for new faces to emerge in this year’s championship.
The lofty standards those three have set in the record books has stood the test of time despite numerous top-10’s being recorded by this year’s group of student-athletes.
Two-time national champion Carsyn Koch-Johnson has competed in just one conference championship meet, but alone is worth the price of admission with her career credentials. The senior has been gradually ramping up her workload after recovering from various injuries.
She still owns conference records in the 800m, 500m (not a championship event) and mile.
Tiffin’s Marisa Gwinner and Nicole Berry have burst on to the scene with their accomplishments in high jump and the throws cage.
Gwinner is clumped pretty close with other high jump contenders along with Lake Erie’s Madyson Plante and Malone’s Olga Branney – all three have conference field athletes of the week this season.
Berry is just a freshman – a scary proposition considering she just broke Findlay All-American Alex DeVincentis’ record in the shot put at the Kent State Tune-Up. Another Dragon, Miaisha Blair, is the new triple jump Great Midwest record holder.
Brittany Holbrook has set the tone for Tiffin’s sprints unit and has been a two-time track athlete of the week. She has carved out top-10 times in both the 60 and 200-meter runs.
Cedarville’s Lyndsey Smith has emerged as the long jump favorite, an event that has been dominated by Perry in recent history.
As defending conference champion, Hillsdale has had to work around the additional graduation of weight throw record holder Rachael Tolsma and pole vaulter Alexandra Whitford. The Chargers are deep as anyone in the distance field, comparable to Walsh, especially going back to the cross country season.