As the regular season comes to an end for the Hillsdale College men's track and field team, the Chargers did their best to set up a strong push at the NCAA DII Outdoor Championships at the end of May with their performances in Last Chance meets this past weekend.

At least one Charger almost certainly jumped into the national meet field with a massive personal best. Running out in Oregon in a stacked Portland Twilight meet on Saturday, senior Ross Kuhn cut four seconds off his previous best effort in the 1,500m run to place ninth in a field full of Division I athletes and professionals with a time or 3:43.54. That mark is not only a provisional qualifying mark but the 16th best time in NCAA DII this year, virtually locking Kuhn in to his first trip to the NCAA DII Outdoor Championships and into the 20-athlete field for the 1,500m run.

Kuhn's time also breaks a 28-year old school record in the event set by Kurt Knueve in 1997, going more than three full seconds faster than Knueve's previous record time of 3:46.75.

Another athlete competing in Portland, Gabriel Phillips, ran a season best in the 3,000m steeplechase in 9:14.97 to finish fifth.

Hillsdale also had several athletes competing at the Len Paddock Open hosted by the University of Michigan on Friday. Ben Haas, the nation's top seed in the hammer throw, won the invitational title with a mark of 64.82 meters, a provisional qualifying mark but not an improvement on his NCAA DII-leading throw of 67.21 meters. Mark Masaka took seventh in the 800m run with a time of 1:53.88, and Jackson Childress placed eighth in the discus with a throw of 48.64 meters as well.

The Chargers finished up the weekend on Sunday at the GVSU Last Chance Invite in Allendale, Michigan. Senior Jamahl Burke closed out a strong career at Hillsdale with a third-place finish in the 400m dash (49.20) and a sixth place finish in the 200m dash (22.16), while Childress also took eighth in the discus with a throw of 46.90 meters.

Hillsdale now turns its focus to the NCAA DII Outdoor Championships, scheduled to take place on May 22-24 in Pueblo, Colorado. Hillsdale has four athletes who are in position to make the field -- Kuhn, Haas, Cass Dobrowolski and Richie Johnston, and will await the official announcement of the field on NCAA.com tomorrow at 5 p.m.

Photo by Sarah Chappelle