Contact: Clark Teuscher, Sports Information Director, 630-637-5302
Results
GENEVA, Ohio (May 25, 2019) - Two of the North Central College men's track and field team's all-time greats closed their careers in a fashion befitting their legacies on Saturday, providing the bulk of the points in the Cardinals' sixth-place finish in the NCAA Division III Outdoor Championships at the SPIRE Sports Complex.
Distance runner Dhruvil Patel entered the weekend as the prohibitive favorite in the 5,000- and 10,000-meter events and delivered national titles in both, joining Dan Mayer '94 (1993 and 1994) and Michael Spain '11 (2011) as the only Cardinals ever to win both events at the same championship. A six-time national champion, Patel closes his career with 13 combined All-America honors in cross country and track and field, a new record for the storied programs.
Sprinter Peyton Piron, meanwhile, turned in a fifth-place finish in the 400-meter dash and teamed with Michael Stanley, Maceo Findlay and Gavin Cernek to place seventh in the 4-by-400-meter relay. Piron ends his North Central tenure with 12 All-America honors in track and field, breaking the previous Cardinal record of 10 shared by Jan Cado '93, Andre Coleman '94 and Adam Pennington '08.
"It's not an individual accomplishment," Piron said. "It's the training I do with my teammates every day, and the coaches pushing me, that all helped to get me there. It was never a goal of mine, but to talk about it now is pretty awesome."
Patel opened the weekend with a successful defense of his 10,000-meter national title from a season ago, claiming one of the narrowest wins of his career in sharp contrast to his 30-second margin of victory in 2018.
Opting for a more conservative strategy this time around, Patel ran within the field early and was part of a six-man pack which broke free during the second mile of the 6.2-mile race. The main group remained largely intact until less than a mile remained, but by the time the bell rang for the final lap, only Carleton College (Minnesota) sophomore Lucas Mueller and University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire senior Darin Lau remained joined in battle with Patel.
Patel toured the final 400 meters in 1:01.37, capping off a 4:34 mile to close the race, but was unable to shake Mueller until just before the finish line, pulling in front by a single full stride to prevail in a winning time of 30 minutes, 14.05 seconds to Mueller's 30:14.26.
North Central was also represented in the race by Matt Osmulski and Matt Norvell, who placed 10th (31:12.82) and 11th (31:18.53), respectively, after challenging for the final spots on the awards stand late in the race.
"Last year, I kind of ran away with it," Patel said. "I kind of thought the same would happen this year, but it didn't, so you have to adapt. I love those kinds of finishes, I love being in a competitive environment and I knew I had the leg speed to pull it off."
Patel stepped onto the track Saturday for the 5,000 greeted by less than ideal conditions, as temperatures neared 90 degrees with high humidity. Again opting to run patiently, he bided his time in the middle of the lead pack until moving in front with 600 meters to go.
Heading into the final lap, Patel held a slim lead over Pomona-Pitzer Colleges' (California) Andy Reischling. The issue remained in doubt until the runners made the final turn onto the front straightaway, and Patel closed the door with a powerful final sprint that carried him to the win in 14:40.86 to Reischling's 14:43.41. Patel's final lap of 1:03.35 was more than two seconds faster than any runner in the field.
"I was feeling really good," he said. "I just kept patient. When I made my move, I noticed everyone around me was kind of tired, so I made the move and didn't look back.
"Distance running is a lot about patience. I was thinking about making a move with 2,000 meters to go, but I decided to keep feeling the competition out. You have to be intuitive when you race. I just read the field and read my body."
An All-American in the 400-meter hurdles at the 2017 and 2018 outdoor championships, Piron qualified fourth-fastest for Saturday's 400-meter dash final.
"We tried to figure out what we could do to score the most points and help the team," Piron said of the change in events. "With how things went indoors in the 400, we felt it was the best option. I think it was a good decision."
In one of the fastest 400-meter finals in recent years, Piron turned in a lifetime-best finishing time of 46.90 seconds to place fifth despite finishing just .63 seconds behind individual champion Patrick Mikel of Loras College (Iowa). Piron's time is the second-fastest in the Cardinals' history, behind only the 46.84 recorded by national champion Dan Benton '12 in 2011. Piron anchored the 4-by-400-meter relay team to a finishing time of 3:12.87, its second-fastest of the season, in the final event of the meet.
"It was awesome to get these guys in the relay an All-America (award)," Piron said. "That was a goal of mine. That was really special."
Nolan McKenna also represented the Cardinals in the 5,000, placing 12th (15:19.82), while Michael Anderson finished 12th in the 1,500-meter final (4:05.01) and Kyle LeBlanc placed 18th in the high jump (6'4").
The Cardinals totaled 26 points in the championship. The University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire placed first (68), followed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (38), the University of Mount Union (36) the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh (32) and John Carroll University (29).
