By Bryson Hartzler

The Bluffton University men’s and women’s track and field program returned home from a weekend spent at the University of Findlay with several new school records and more personal bests. The Beavers are seemingly hitting their stride at the right time of year with the Heartland Conference championship just a month away.

The two-day meet started off on the right foot Friday night when senior Alison Janzen (Whitewater, Kan./Remington) set a new school record in the 5K. Janzen dropped 26 seconds off her previous personal best, setting a new school record in the process.

Janzen finished in second place among a very strong field with a time of 19:04.40. Janzen’s performance is the top time in the conference and ranks 8th on the All-Ohio list.

The men’s DMR team of Colin McCloskey (Sylvania/Northview), Josh Mattoon (Rawson/Cory-Rawson), Joshua Edens (Westerville/Central) and Zachary Smith (West Unity/Hilltop) ran a new season-best time of 10:53.96. It was an improvement of 47 seconds from earlier this month and just 10 seconds off the school record.

Their performance, as well as the women’s DMR, sits atop the conference standings as well. Smith followed up his DMR performance on Friday with strong performances in the mile, 800 and 4x400 on Saturday.

The Saturday session was highlighted by two new school records. Freshman Kendall Weber (Wauseon) re-set her 60m hurdle record. Weber was the only Division III athlete to make it through to the final where she finished with a time of 9.61, re-setting her previous best by 0.25 seconds.

Fellow freshman Colin McCloskey also improved on his record in the 3K, shaving nearly 20 seconds to finish in 9:08.29.  McCloskey finished fourth overall in a strong field and was the top freshman to cross the line. His performance has McCloskey at 6th on the conference list and 13th on the All-Ohio list.

Other personal bests came from all across the board. Freshman Calib Alexander (Ocala, Fla./St. John Lutheran) just missed the finals of the 60m hurdles, finishing with a time of 7.26. Alexander and his teammate Dante Dalton (Ecorse, Mich./Riverview Community), who ran 7.36 last week, now sit 8th and 10th on the conference list.

A multitude of personal bests also came in the 3K. Freshman Josh Cunnigham (Poquoson, Va.) improved his season’s best by 18 seconds while fellow freshman Demi Snider (Kenton) also improved her time 35 seconds.

Senior Maddie Moore (Linn Grove, Ind./South Adams) had a strong performance as well, finishing with an HCAC-qualifying time of 11:17.27. Moore and Snider now sit at 5th and 7th place in the conference with senior Alison Janzen also among the top 10 in 4th place.

Head Coach Karen Brandt was pleased with the numerous outstanding performance from all members of the team, especially the distance group, “The past few meets our throwers have taken the spotlight but over the two-day meet at Findlay, distance and middle distance had their chance to shine. Alison’s school record in the 5k is a testament to the power of hard work and dedication when one realizes two years ago she was running 23-24 minutes over 5K. I was pleased when Colin broke the 3K record a few weeks ago, but knew he could run a faster race which he proved yesterday. And it was a joy to see Demi overcome with emotion when she knew what she had achieved. It’s good for our young team to be posting qualifiers for the conference championship and getting our names on the All-Ohio lists. To have freshmen like Kendall and Calib making their marks in the shorter events shows we are a well-rounded unit across all the events. The season is still young and I’m sure more good things are yet to come.”

Using that as their mantra, more good things are sure to come as the Beavers return to action this week when they travel to Ohio Northern University for the Joe Banks Invitational on Feb. 2.