Women's Track Chargers earn provisional marks, throw team maintains No.1 spot

By Tracy Wilson

Design Editor Hillsdale’s women’s track and field team is ranked third overall this week in the NCAA Division II Midwest region.

Following the Jud Logan Light Giver Open at Ashland on Feb. 3 and Feb. 4, the Chargers took home several victories, including multiple provisional qualifying marks. For the second week in a row, the women’s weight throw team is ranked first among NCAA DII weight throw teams.

“It was a really good step in the right direction,” head coach R.P. White said. “We had a lot of really good things happen. Not every-

By Maddy Welsh

News Editor

Charger swim started this year’s conference championship meet with standout individual and team swims to earn points for what could be the team’s fourth consecutive championship win.

“We are very upbeat and optimistic but also understand that Findlay has reloaded with three fourths of their scoring nucleus being freshmen we haven’t seen at thing goes your way at a big track meet like that, but for the most part, the overarching emphasis was that we’re turning in the right direction as we approach championship season.”

Sophomore Shura Ermakov excelled at the Light Giver Open, hitting the provisional mark in the Open 400 with a time of 55.63. Ermakov and teammates Gwynne Riley, Reese Dragovich, and Meg Scheske, also hit a provisional mark in the women’s 4000 meter distance medley relay with a total time of 11:41.

“My leg on the DMR is the shortest by far, so a lot of success is due to the mile leg, and the 1200 and the 800,” Ermakov said. “It was fairly unexpected for me to PR in the open 400 by a lot. I was just hoping to hit close to the provisional mark.”

Sophomore Reagan Dahlquist said she was impressed by Ermakov’s success. “What stood out to me was when Shura ran a 55 second 400. That was a crazy personal record for her,” Dahlquist said. “I was shocked, and she was super happy about it.”

Dahlquist placed first in the women’s high jump. She jumped 1.65m, which was her best so far this season.

“I had been in a little bit of a rut for the first few meets this season,” Dahlquist said. “This meet, it just came together. I was able to execute the stuff we’ve been practicing. All the pieces fit, and I ended up being able to jump a season’s best. I had a miss at one of my heights but I handled that fairly well, and I went ahead and made it on my second attempt at it.”

There were several other standout team members this weekend. Sophomore Katie Sayles took second in the weight throw event, throwing 18.67m. Senior Nikita Maines took fourth in the weight throw, throwing 18.20m. In the women’s shot put, sophomore Averi Parker took second with a throw of 14.52m, while Maines took fourth with a throw of 13.69m.

White said it's standard a championship before,” head coach Kurt Kirner said. “We are focused however on our performances and not on what anyone else is doing or capable of.”

The team traveled to Canton, Ohio, earlier this week for the G-MAC/MEC meet which began Feb. 7 and will close this Friday, Feb. 10. After preliminaries in the morning, the team finished second in the first timed final of the championship, the 200 yard medley relay. Senior

By Josh Newhook Digital Editor

More than 50 million adults in the United States are expected to bet $16 billion on Super LVII, according to survey results released by the American Gaming Association, setting a record. But while the Philadelphia Eagles still hold the line as 1.5-point favorites over the Kansas City Chiefs, the majority of betters are wrong. At first, it might appear as if the Eagles should be even stronger favorites than the spread suggests. They finished top 10 in passing yards and top five in rushing yards, averaging more than 147 yards per game. In addition, the Eagles' combina- tion of a stellar offense and a stingy defense allowed them to soar to third in points for and eighth in points against, placing them at a third-best +133 point differential in the regular season. All this amounted to a first-time 8-0 start and a record-high 14 wins during the regular season.

Nevertheless, as all football enthusiasts know, the postseason is a different animal. Anything can happen on game day. With the NFL top-gun quarterback Patrick Mahomes on the other side of the ball, the Chiefs have a far better chance at bringing home a third Lombardi Trophy.

Mahomes, who will be starting in his third Super Bowl in four years, is

Leah Tunney, sophomore Joanna Burnham, senior Anika Fassett, and freshman Julianna Weir finished the race in 1:46.26 to beat their own record time.

Sophomore Elise Mason remains the reigning G-MAC champion in the 1000 yard freestyle which she won with a time of 10:19.37. This swim was a personal best time – last year at the championship meet she swam it in 10:28.08 – as well as a NCAA B cut time. She was also 17 no newcomer to the big game. In fact, now that the G.O.A.T. Tom Brady has retired, he has the most Super Bowl appearances of any active starting quarterback.

He is coming off a stellar season with a career-high 67.1% pass completion and a league-leading 5,250 passing yards and 41 passing touchdowns, enough to earn him a second First Team All-Pro nod and make him the clear favorite for what would be his second NFL MVP honor.

Mahomes led the Chiefs to the No.1 scoring offense this season despite the odds. For the first time in his career, Mahomes was without his longtime favorite wide receiver target, four-time first-team All-Pro Tyreek Hill, who left for Miami in a seconds ahead of the second place finisher who swam a 10:36.21.

Four Chargers stood on the podium for the 200 yard individual medley. Burnham placed third with a time of 2:07.47. Junior Caroline Holmes finished fourth (2:09.76), Tunney sixth (2:11.10), and sophomore Emma Dickhudt tied an Ashland University athlete for seventh with a time of 2:14.67. Senior Marie Taylor tied for the throwers to throw for provisional marks.

In the women’s pole vault, sophomore Morgan Iverson tied for third place with two other opponents, each hitting 3.65m.

In the 5000m run, junior Natalie Martinson took third with a time of 18:13.09. Fellow distance runners Riley and Scheske took first and second respectively in the 3000m run. Riley finished with a time of 10:01, with Scheske following close behind at 10:08.

In the pentathlon, sophomore Neva Polo took second place overall with an overall scoreof 3166. Junior Allison Nimtz, who also competed in the pentathlon, took first in the pentathlon shot put with a throw of 10.93.

Sophomore Louisa Klaserner took first in the 60m hurdles, finishing at 8:93.

“Louisa hit a PR in the 60 hurdles, which is not unexpected, but it was cool to watch her do that, especially since she’s been working through a lot with hurdling,” Ermakov said. Ermakov said the team’s success at this meet was good preparation for competing at Ashland in a few weeks.

“It’s significant that we were able to perform well at Ashland because that’s also where we’re holding conference in 3 weeks,” Ermakov said. “It was good to get a feel of the track there.” a Findlay University freshman for first in the 50 yard freestyle, which she won last year as well. Both swimmers finished in 23.93 and earned NCAA B cut times. Weir came sixth in the sprint race with a time of 24.32.

To close the first day, the Chargers finished second in the 200 yard freestyle relay with a time of 1:37.32. Weir, sophomore Lily Golladay, Tunney, and Taylor participated in the event.

These performances put trade last March. In addition, Mahomes has had to battle an injury throughout most of the playoffs, after suffering a high ankle sprain in the first quarter of the divisional round game against the Jaguars, which sidelined him for the rest of the half. Nevertheless, he played through the pain to help his team hold off the Jaguars in the second half and outgunned rival Joe Burrow in the championship game.

Mahomes said his ankle is “definitely better” ahead of Super Bowl weekend, according to CBS Sports.

With a healthy body, the league’s best asset is set to make a splash in comparison to Eagles’ quarterback Jalen Hurts, who is in only his second postseason appearance and has won four times fewer postseason games than Mahomes.

Just as Mahomes learned earlier in his career when facing Brady, who ended his career 2-0 against Mahomes in the postseason, experience matters. Mahomes reflected on his growth even since last year’s conference championship during the NFL’s Super Bowl interviews on Tuesday.

"I think when you've been in some big games now a couple of years in a row, you've learned from your mistakes," Mahomes said in an interview after the victory over the Bengals.

He also has the experience of losing a Super Bowl, which he sees as motivation

Hillsdale in a strong second place at the end of the first day, just 46.5 points behind rival Findlay but 151 points ahead of third-place Ashland.

“We couldn’t have asked for a better attitude to start the meet with,” senior Sydney Slepian said. “The energy on the deck was absolutely electric. Everyone is doing so well and we are so excited for what the future holds for us in the next two days.” for this year’s big game.

“The win is amazing. It’s one of the best moments of your entire life. You take away all the positives from that,” Mahomes said Monday at the Super Bowl's opening night. “But that loss, that stings. That motivates you for years. What it’s done for me is it’s motivated me to be back in this game again. I want to make sure that I can have that winning feeling and not that losing one because that losing feeling is one you’ll never forget.”

Mahomes will be the X-factor in whether he encounters the losing feeling again this year, but with his experience and the Chiefs’ success, his team is in the perfect position for an upset.