At the halfway point of Saturday's G-MAC men's cross country championship at Hayden Park, Hillsdale College's chances of ending a 24-year title drought looked slim at best.
The Chargers trailed leader and title favorite Findlay by 22 points, a massive amount of ground to make up in a short amount of distance.
Undaunted, however, Hillsdale's top five runners poured everything they had into the back half of the race taking place on their home course, staging an epic comeback over the final four kilometers to run down the Oilers in a shocking upset and claim the program's first conference title as a team since 2000.
Over the next three kilometers after the halfway mark, Hillsdale methodically closed the gap to the leaders, aggressively passing and working their way up to make it a dead heat with a kilometer to go. Then in a frenetic stretch run, the Chargers surged ahead of both Findlay and third-place Walsh, scoring 50 points to beat out the Oilers' 60 and the Cavaliers' 68 and take the G-MAC crown over two nationally-ranked teams in the latest USTFCCCA poll.
The strength of Hillsdale's pack allowed them to prevail, triumphing over Findlay's impressive display at the front with Oilers runners going 1-2 individually in the race. The Chargers were the only team to put three runners in the top 10 and five in the top 20, with all five earning All-Conference honors in Hillsdale's best-ever G-MAC showing in terms of awards.
Leading the way was senior
Richie Johnston, who repeated as a first-team All-G-MAC honoree and broke the 25 minute mark for the first time with a fifth place finish in 24:57.8. Close behind were teammates
Gabriel Phillips and
Ross Kuhn, who also ran personal bests with Phillips placing seventh in 25:03.3 and Kuhn finishing eighth in 25:05.1. Both athletes also earned first team All-G-MAC honors.
But while Hillsdale's top finishers played an important role, the Chargers couldn't have brought home the title without a stellar performance by its fourth and fifth runners. Sophomore
Caleb Youngstedt took 14th in 25:25.3 and junior
Nathaniel Osborne took 16th in 25:33.3, both personal bests by over 30 seconds, to earn second-team All-G-MAC honors. It was Youngstedt and Osborne who drove Hillsdale's stunning comeback over the final four kilometers of the race, as the pair combined to pass 21 opposing runners over that stretch to turn a seemingly insurmountable deficit into an advantage big enough to win.
The Chargers'
Mark Masaka placed 73rd in 27:03.3 and
Zach Self finished 74th in 27:03.7 as well to round out Hillsdale's placers.
It's Hillsdale's first-ever G-MAC men's cross country title, and the first since a GLIAC crown in 2000 under legendary coach Bill Lundberg. Perhaps beginning to carve out his own legacy, Chargers head coach
R.P. White became the first Hillsdale men's cross country head coach since Lundberg to be named conference coach of the year as well after being recognized by the G-MAC today.
Title in hand, the Chargers have significantly boosted their chances heading into the NCAA DII Midwest Regional two Saturdays from now, Nov. 9, in Chicago, Illinois. The top three team finishers will advance to the NCAA DII national meet in Sacramento, California at the end of November, and while it will be a fierce fight for those spots, Hillsdale has inserted itself in the conversation while also opening up the possibility of an at-large selection with a strong-enough race at regionals that doesn't finish in the top three.
