Contact: Clark Teuscher, Sports Information Director, 630-637-5302
Results
Feb. 23, 2019 - In a performance befitting of a No. 1-ranked program, the North Central College men's track and field team stormed to a thoroughly dominant victory in the College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin (CCIW) Indoor Championships Friday and Saturday at Al B. Carius Track. The Cardinals won eight of the 17 contested events and easily outdistanced the field in claiming their third straight conference crown and their 18th in the 19 years of the meet's history.
North Central totaled 218 points, more than double the score of 113 put up by runner-up Augustana College, recording its second-highest margin of victory ever in the meet.
The Cardinals won three of the five scored events on Friday. Luke Winder became the first individual in the history of the CCIW men's indoor championship to win the same event four times, breaking his own meet record with a clearance of 17 feet, 6.50 inches to win the pole vault, while Dylan Kuipers cleared 15'9.25" to place second. Matt Norvell won the 5,000-meter run in 14 minutes, 33.19 seconds to lead a 1-2-3 finish which included runner-up Matt Osmulski (14:51.44) and thid-place finisher Thomas Rohr (14:54.47), while the distance medley relay team of Michael Anderson, Zach Robinson, Gabe Pommier and Nolan McKenna closed the night by clocking a winning time of 10:11.00.
North Central swept the top three spots in both distance events on Saturday as well. Dhruvil Patel, racing at the mile distance indoors for the first time in two years, clocked a time of 4:14.68 to win the event and become a three-time indoor conference champ, winning the 3,000-meter run last season and the 5,000-meter run in 2017. Teammate Al Baldonado, a senior who had not raced in the mile at all as a collegian, placed second in 4:14.94, while Chris Buechner finished third in 4:18.82.
McKenna returned the track to lead the field to the line in the 3,000 in 8:26.51, followed by Patel in second (8:26.54) and Zach Hird in third (8:34.60). Izaiah Webb and Kendall Johnson both turned in personal bests to place first (46'4.50") and second (46'0.75"), respectively, in the triple jump, while Peyton Piron set a meet record with a winning time of 48.13 seconds in the 400-meter dash followed by teammate Gavin Cernek in second (49.73). Piron, who was voted the CCIW's Track Athlete of the Year y the CCIW's head coaches after the meet, later won the 200-meter dash as well in a personal-best time of 22.20.
Brendon Sebastian clocked a two-second personal best of 1:53.39 to finish second in the 800-meter run, and Kyle Hilton's personal-record time of 8.42 brought him across the line second in the 60-meter hurdles.
The Cardinals will compete in the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point Final Qualifier on Saturday before heading to Boston, Massachusetts for the NCAA Division III Indoor National Championships Mar. 8-9.
