The top track and field talents in the conference will be heading to Findlay's Robert A. Malcolm Athletic Center for the Great Midwest Athletic Conference Indoor Track & Field Championships this weekend.
Eleven different conference records have been shattered already on the men's side. Friday and Saturday promises to break more conference meet bests as sprinters, jumpers, throwers and distance runners take aim at the record books.
The multis will get things going on Friday for the two-day event. The Great Midwest Digital Network will carry the event on compatible streaming devices and live results will also be available from the timing company.
Findlay, the defending G-MAC champion, is ranked 11th in the most recent USTFCCCA Ratings Index. Competing for the first time in the G-MAC meet is Tiffin, a program with two indoor national championships already under their belt. They are the highest ranked G-MAC team entering the tourney at No. 4 in the country. The Dragons sprints/hurdles units are deep and impressive with Lamar Hargrove, Errik Snell, Drew Hickman, Tajarie Arthurton, Jonte Baker, Elijah Gauldin and others, playing a starring role.
Those runners have been responsible for new conference records in 60-meter dash (Hargrove) and 4x400 relay (Hickman, Hargrove) and plenty of other top-10 marks in conference history.
Exceptional talent abounds at the men's meet. Findlay, despite the graduation of NCAA qualifier Trey Everett, has plenty of talent to compete. Freshman Xavier Marable just clocked the league's best 400-meter dash time of the season.
Defending weight throw national champion Austin Combs just broke his own conference record and sophomore Martin Etsey is currently ranked No. 2 nationally in the triple jump. Senior thrower Eldred Henry is tops in the DII (14th overall including Division I) ranks for the 2018-19 season.
Walsh freshman Josh Conrad just set the conference record in the 800-meter run last weekend and some notable distance runners like George McCartney (Malone), Joseph Humes (Hillsdale) will headline the field of strong competitors.
Cedarville's Tommy Ansiel and Tiffin's Davis Bowers have been back and forth trading for the top spot in the pole vault this year. Ansiel is one of just four in DII to auto qualify for nationals.
Most recently the Dragons had athletes competing at the Kent State Tune-Up and the Ohio State University Tune-Up over the weekend, with the standout performance from the meets going to Nikolas Curtiss who is now third in the nation in the shot put.
Nikolas Curtiss and Jabari Bennett have also already automatically qualified for Nationals in shot put, while Cameron Burrows (long jump, high jump, heptathlon), Quincy Scott (long jump), Kyle Stump and Eric Jackson (shot put), Toryko Grace, Curtiss, Tristen Durr, and Lovell Peterson (weight throw) also have provisionally qualified for Nationals.