Contact: Clark Teuscher, Sports Information Director, 630-637-5302

Results

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (Mar. 10, 2018) - A sterling teamwide effort brought the North Central College men's track and field team within inches of a sixth NCAA Division III Indoor Championship at the Birmingham Crossplex, as the Cardinals wound up departing as the national runners-up by a single point.

With a total of 12 athletes achieving All-America status during the two-day meet, North Central finished with a total of 40 points, one short of the University of Mount Union's score of 41. The Cardinals scored six more points than the 34 which tied them for the team title in last year's meet.

"They did a great job," North Central head coach Frank Gramarosso said. "When you finish second by one point, you try to look around and see where that extra point might have come from, but we had all kinds of personal bests. They did what they needed to do, we were just one point short."

The Cardinals crowned their 60th individual champion on Friday, as Dhruvil Patel emerged victorious in the 5,000-meter run. In third place for most of the final mile, Patel darted inside race leader Darin Lau of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, the Division III national cross country champion last fall, and took the lead with one lap remaining. Patel surged away to win in a personal-best time of 14 minutes, 22.48 seconds, the fourth-fastest in North Central history indoors.

Patel is the sixth Cardinal to win the indoor 5,000 after placing second in the same event last year. He was joined on the awards stand by teammates Dan O'Keefe and Matt Norvell, who finished seventh (14:37.62) and eighth (14:44.19), respectively.

The Cardinals also got All-America efforts on Friday from Dylan Kuipers, who equaled his indoor personal best with a clearance of 16 feet, 4.75 inches to finish third in the pole vault, and the distance medley relay team of Chris Buechner, Michael Stanley, Michael Anderson and Zach Hird, which placed seventh in 10:00.26.

North Central's Peyton Piron achieved a personal best of 48.35 seconds in Friday's preliminary heats of the 400-meter dash, qualifying for Saturday's final, where he placed third overall in a time of 48.01 which tied the Cardinals' indoor school record set by Dan Benton in 2012.

Patel returned to the track Saturday for the 3,000-meter run. After biding his time near the back of the pack early in the race, he moved up through the field as the pace picked up. Steadily picking off competitors, Patel hit the finish line fourth in a personal-best time of 8:19.87, also fourth-fastest in the Cardinals' indoor history.

North Central's 4-by-400-meter relay team of Piron, Daniel Spaccapaniccia, Maceo Findlay and Ben Nordman broke a 26-year old indoor school record in Friday's preliminaries (3:15.15), then improved upon their mark even further in Saturday's final. The Cardinals took the track for the second and final heat of the last event of the championship and finished in 3:14.48 as Piron delivered an anchor leg of 47.76. North Central placed second overall only to Mount Union's time of 3:13.77 from the first heat of the final.

The Cardinals were also represented at the championship by Adam Poklop, who finished 10th in the high jump (6'7.50") and Nolan McKenna, who placed 13th in the 5,000 (15:17.66).

"I'm really excited," Gramarosso said. "I knew we had a team that could finish in the top four and take home a trophy, and it was such an exciting meet. This will springboard us into the outdoor season, and we'll see what happens then."

North Central will open the 2018 outdoor season Mar. 30-31 at the Washington University in St. Louis Invitational.