This time, Allison Kuzma left no doubts.
After taking third in the 10,000m run as a freshman at the 2025 NCAA DII Outdoor Championships, Kuzma, a sophomore on the Hillsdale College women's track and field team entered the 2026 edition as the top seed and the favorite to take the crown, and she ran like it, demolishing the rest of the field by nearly 38 seconds to earn her the second national title of her career.
For the first two-thirds of the race, Kuzma was content to hang with the lead pack and bide her time, keeping the early race leaders in striking distance. That changed at the 6,200m mark, as Kuzma surged to the front of the pack and began to rapidly pull away from the field. In just a lap and a half she opened up a 10 second gap to second place and didn't let up, taking as much as a 200m advantage on the rest of the field to put the title away early. Pushing hard to the finish, Kuzma crossed the line in 33:43.47, breaking the facility record of 34:14.47 set by Florence Uwajeneza of West Texas A&M at the 2024 NCAA DII Outdoor Championships.
The title and the dominance displayed by Kuzma add to a similarly impressive indoor national title won this winter in the 5,000m run at Virginia Beach, Virginia in March. Kuzma joins a short list of Hillsdale women's track and field greats with multiple individual national titles, becoming the fifth Charger to accomplish that feat after past greats Erin Gillespie, Gina Van Laar, Amanda Putt and Emily Oren.
While Kuzma tore up the track, senior Tara Townsend was putting the finishing touches on a stellar career in the pole vault with her third All-American honor and best-ever national meet finish. Braving the nasty, rainy weather that affected the entire field and made vaulting tough, Townsend matched her season best with a clearance of 4.15 meters, truly an impressive feat in adverse conditions, to tie for third place overall. The finish adds to an eighth-place finish at the 2025 NCAA DII Outdoor Championships and a seventh-place finish at the 2026 NCAA DII Indoor Championships for Townsend, and makes her one of the most decorated female vaulters in program history, trailing only six-time All-American Kayla Caldwell.
Sophomore Amelia Lutz also competed in the women's hammer for the Chargers, tying for 21st place.
Hillsdale will be back in action tomorrow with more competition in the throws, as freshman Sofia Boonzaaijer looks to bring home All-American honors in the discus at 5:30 p.m.