Drama had become the norm at the NCAA Division III National Championships for the North Central College men's track and field team after the Cardinals placed second by a single point in both the indoor and outdoor championships in 2018.
 
In no mood to do the same at the 2019 indoor championship meet, the Cardinals surged ahead of the field with a series of clutch performances to win their sixth indoor national title and their 12th championship overall on Mar. 9 at the Reggie Lewis Center in Boston, Massachusetts.
 
North Central put up 55 points to finish well ahead of the University of Mount Union (Ohio) and the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, which tied for second place with 39.
 
"It's undescribable," said North Central head coach Frank Gramarosso. "It played out perfectly. We planned it to make the best use of our guys, and we started off great. It was just a fabulous day."
 
The Cardinals staked themselves to an early lead by tallying 16 points in the pole vault in Friday's first event final, making an additional bit of history along the way.
 
Dylan Kuipers started the competition strong, clearing his first two heights on the first attempt, then came through under pressure by clearing 16 feet, 0.75 inch on the third attempt to keep himself in the hunt. Another first-attempt clearance at 16'2.75" was enough to clinch third place on the awards stand for the second straight indoor championship.
 
 "Getting the first bars out of the way was crucial," Kuipers said. "When we come in, we know that we're the best-prepared out of anyone because of the practice and work ethic we put in at home. Coming here was nothing different; it was the same process as every other week."
 
Luke Winder, meanwhile, waited until the bar had been raised to 16'6.75" to make his first appearance on the runway. The only remaining competitor at that height was the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater's Zach Jasinski, whose season-best clearance of 17'0.75" ranked only behind Winder heading into the meet.
 
Both competitors cleared 16'6.75" and passed at 16'8.75" before electing to make their attempts at 16'10.75". Winder's second-attempt clearance at the height wound up clinching the national championship, and he later cleared 17'4.50" on his second attempt. Winder closed out his collegiate career by attempting to break his own Division III indoor championship meet record of 18'1.25", missing on three well-executed attempts at 18'1.75".
 
"It was awesome to see Dylan come through like that, and it inspired me," Winder said. "I figured if he could do it, I could do it, too. I had been kind of stuck at a certain bar, but today I was able to reach up and have some really good attempts over 18 feet."
 
Winder is the first pole vaulter in collegiate history in any division to win four indoor national championships, and, owning a trio of outdoor titles as well, is also the only seven-time pole vault champion collegiate track and field has yet to know.
 
"I know that none of this could have been done without all our other vaulters and obviously my dad (North Central pole vault coach Tim Winder)," he said. "But more than anyone, it's been my mom (Margot Winder) and my fiancée Amber, having dealt with so much of my frustration when I haven't done as well as I wanted but always coming to me with open arms. They've gone all over the country to meets and stayed late at practices, and they're the ones I really owe it to."
 
The Cardinals tacked on a second national title on Friday, as Dhruvil Patel successfully defended his 2018 indoor championship in the 5,000-meter run. On the tail end of a busy day after running in a newly-instituted preliminary heat of the 3,000-meter run, Patel ran conservatively in the early going, passing one mile in four minutes, 41 seconds and two miles in 9:22 in the middle of the pack before moving up front with about a mile to go. Patel covered the final 800 meters in 2:10, hitting the finish line in 14:24.86 with a four-second margin of victory.
 
"It's just a great feeling, more so for my team than myself," Patel said. "We knew we had a great shot to win, and for Luke and Dylan and Zach (Hird), this is it for them, so I wanted them to go out with a bang."
 
The Cardinals tacked on eight points in the final event of the evening, the distance medley relay, to finish the opening day of competition in first place with 34 points. Hird completed the 1,200-meter leadoff leg in 3:04.74, followed by a 48.32-second 400-meter split by Peyton Piron. Brendon Sebastian delivered an 800-meter split of 1:53.40, just outside his individual personal best, and Michael Anderson closed with a 1,600-meter split of 4:12.31 to give North Central a second-place showing in 9:58.75, its highest in the event at the national meet since 2006.
 
Piron returned to the track on Saturday for the finals of the 400-meter dash after putting up a season-best time of 48.11 in Friday's preliminaries, which stood as the fastest qualifying mark. Piron delivered his 10th career All-America plaque and his second straight in the indoor 400, placing second in a North Central-record time of 47.70 seconds. Piron and first-place finisher Patrick Mikel of Loras College (47.52) both dipped under the previous national-championship record in the event.
 
Patel and Nolan McKenna stepped to the starting line for the final of the 3,000-meter run as the Cardinals' final competitors in the meet, having already been informed that they needed to score just three total points to ensure victory in the team competition. McKenna ran strongly near the front of the pack early on, while Patel, the only entrant in the meet to compete in both the 3,000- and 5,000-meter events, bided his time further back.
 
Patel surged forward in the final 400 meters and came to the line second in a personal-best time of 8:16.24, while McKenna held on for fourth place (8:17.00) to earn his first All-America award. The pair wound up totaling 13 points to cue the start of the celebration.
 
"The unknown in this meet was the prelim heat being added in the 3k," Gramarosso said. "Dhruvil successfully accomplished that, it was unbelievable for him to accomplish that kind of double. It was fabulous to see Nolan run strong and take the lead, it was just great all the way around."
 
Gabe Pommier, who missed a large portion of the season due to injury, managed a lifetime-best mark of 4:12.58 in the qualifying heats of the mile run to move up to seventh-fastest in the program's history and qualify for Saturday's final, where he placed 10th. North Central was also represented in the mile by Chris Buechner (20th, 4:19.69), along with Gavin Cernekin the 400 prelims (49.87) and Matt Norvell (10th, 14:42.77) and Matt Osmulski (16th, 15:03.08) in the 5,000.