Men’s track breaks records

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Men’s track breaks records

Wide Track Classic Indoor Track 2016 Sergio San Jose Lorza

Junior Sergio San Jose Lorza didn’t take long to make an impact on the Hillsdale College men’s track team after transferring to Hillsdale from Spain at the beginning of the semester. At last weekend’s Hillsdale Wide Track Classic — in his first meet running for Hillsdale — Lorza broke the school record in the 60-meter dash, running the distance in 6.87 seconds and besting teammate senior Todd Frickey who set the previous school record at a meet two weeks ago.
Sophomore pole vaulter Jared Schipper also broke a school record, topping his previous record from earlier this season with a vault of 5.15 meters.
Lorza was excited about breaking the school record, but is confident he can go even faster.
“Two weeks ago, I ran 6.84 in Spain and I think that when I have adapted to the United States, I can run a similar time,” he said. “In Spain I trained harder, but I think in the United States I’m training better.”
Lorza said short-sprints and jumps coach Nate Miller believes he can make the NCAA Division II National Indoor Championship in March if he shaves 0.08 seconds off his time last Saturday. While 0.08 seconds is only about the time it would take someone to blink twice, it’s a significant amount of time in a race as short as the 60-meter dash.
This indoor season has also seen the arrival of two other transfer athletes: Daniel Čapek, a thrower who transferred to Hillsdale from Northwood University, but is originally from the Czech Republic, and Eli Poth, a distance runner and Michigan native who transferred from Saginaw Valley State University.
Last weekend’s meet was Čapek’s second competing as a Charger. While he hasn’t had the immediate success enjoyed by Lorza, head track coach Andrew Towne said he’s confident in his abilities as a thrower. Last year as a freshman for Northwood, Čapek competed in the NCAA Division II Outdoor Championships in the hammer throw.
“They’re making an impact for us right away, which was good,” Towne said.
Poth has been training with the distance runners since the beginning of the semester, but is ineligible to compete until the 2017 indoor track season.
In addition to Lorza and Schipper, a number of other track athletes had a standout meet. Sophomores Lane White, Tony Wondaal, and David Chase, as well as the 4×400 relay team, all hit provisional marks that make them eligible to run at the indoor championship meet.
Although Wondaal didn’t win the men’s mile, his finishing effort in the last 400 meters of the race — where he moved from the back of the lead pack to the front of the race, only to get out-leaned at the finish line — made it the most exciting race of Friday night. His 4:15 mile was a personal best and 10 seconds faster than he’d run only a month earlier.
“My race plan going in was to just hang on for the first half, get back in the race the next two laps, that’s when I got back into the pack, then the last 400 is kind of mentally challenging because it’s two laps indoors,” Wondaal said. “But I just told myself it’s a 400 and when you’re outside that’s the bell lap, and that’s when you’ve got to go.”
Towne also highlighted Chase’s performance in the heptathlon, an event in which athletes compete for points in seven different types of track and field events. Chase’s score of 4742 was a personal best, and puts him in good position to make the national meet if he improves next time he does the event — likely the GLIAC Conference Indoor Championship Meet.
Still, Towne believes his athletes haven’t reached their full potential yet.
“Everything is capable of being topped in the next few weeks,” he said.
The men’s next track meet will be this Friday and Saturday at the GVSU Big Meet in Allendale, Michigan.
Towne expects more of his athletes to either get provisional marks or improve upon their provisional marks at the meet.
“Historically when we’re two weeks out from a championship, whether it’s indoor or outdoor, we’re trying to have as many of our kids as possible hit marks that will get them into NCAAs,” Towne said. “The whole idea is to be able to have as many kids in the NCAA championships after this weekend as possible so that when we go to GLIAC we can just focus on scoring points.”