Cedarville University's track and field team delivered strong performances on the first day of the Great Midwest Athletic Conference indoor championships in Ashland, Ohio. Athletes set multiple school records and secured top qualifying times across several events. The results position the Yellow Jackets well for the finals on day two.
The Great Midwest Athletic Conference (GMAC) indoor track and field championships took place on February 27-28 at the University of Ashland in Ashland, Ohio. Cedarville's Yellow Jackets entered the meet with high expectations, featuring athletes like Calvin Speicher, Brandon Rogers, Summer Swartwout, and Emily Walsh.
In the men's 60-meter hurdles prelims, junior Calvin Speicher reclaimed the school record with a time of 7.93 seconds, edging out Ashland's Ty Allen by a hundredth of a second. This mark ranks him No. 10 nationally in Division II. "I felt pretty smooth," Speicher said. "The time came up, and I knew it was a fast race." He added, "I had two weeks of good training, and I definitely knew I could run that fast."
Fifteen minutes later, in the men's 400-meter dash prelims, Brandon Rogers led Cedarville with a 47.13-second finish, the second-fastest time in school history. Teammate Jeremy Johnson followed in second at 47.87 seconds, a personal best, while Michael Braxton qualified for finals with 48.82 seconds. Rogers noted, "My main goal was to run fast without straining. I didn’t want to overextend myself–just execute cleanly and stay controlled."
On the women's side, Summer Swartwout excelled in the 60-meter dash prelims, clocking 7.44 seconds for the second-best time in program history and third in the conference behind Hillsdale's Anna Roessner and Findlay's Leah Smith. She followed with a school-record 23.92 seconds in the 200-meter dash prelims, ranking No. 11 nationally and shattering the prior mark by over three-tenths. Swartwout reflected, "I came into this meet with pretty low expectations due to the past couple of meets not going the best. God had other plans."
The women's 4,000-meter distance medley relay team finished second in 11:38.20, ranking No. 10 in Division II. Audrianna Enns ran the 1,200-meter leg, Mallory Gasper the 400, Sydney Diedrich the 800, and Emily Walsh the mile, closing ground on Ashland but falling short in the final stretch.
Day two promises more competition as Cedarville aims to challenge for the team title.
