Results

Fort Wayne, Ind. – The Aquinas men's track and field squad rounded out the second day of the WHAC Championships yesterday (Feb. 18) at Indiana Tech. After a long two days of competition, the men placed second overall out of the eight teams with 171 points. Nathan Iacona and Caleb Hodgkinson won their respective events to become individual WHAC champions. Indiana Tech continued its reign as WHAC champions with 203 total points.

Hodgkinson won the 1,000-meter race with a time of 2:33.37, just beating out an athlete from Lawrence Tech by three-tenths of a second. Brian Langlois took eighth in the same event with a time of 2:40.46.

Hodgkinson returned in the 600-meter run to place second with a time of 1:22.83. Behind him was Jacob Tenbusch (1:24.41), Liam Kelly (1:25.24), Juan David Hernandez (1:27.54), and Will Westveer (1:27.79) who placed in third, fourth, sixth, and seventh place, respectively.

He continued his busy workload by anchoring the men's four-by-400-meter relay to a second-place finish with a time of 3:22.41. He was joined in the event by Cyrus Prudhomme, Iacona, and Tenbusch. In addition, Hodgkinson earned the most valuable performance at the meet as a member of the men's four by 800-meter relay on Friday (Feb. 17).

As a result of his impressive performances, Hodgkinson was named the Most Valuable Performer of the 2023 WHAC Indoor Championships.

Iacona also was named a WHAC champion yesterday after placing first in the men's 400-meter race with a time of 49.31 seconds. This time upgrades his previous provisional qualifier to an automatic standard. Also, in the event, Prudhomme placed seventh to earn AQ two points behind a time of 50.68 seconds.

In the only field event of the day, Jesunifemi Ojutalayo placed second in the triple jump with a mark of 14.77 meters. Ojutalayo improved his automatic standard with that mark and now ranks second all-time in Aquinas history in the triple jump event.

Rob Lohr placed third in the men's mile event with a time of 4:20.01, earning a provisional qualifier. Connor Clemens was hot on his heels, finishing just .35 seconds behind Lohr for a fourth-place finish. Connor Callahan also placed at the event in sixth with a time of 4:21.59.

Earlier in the day, Lohr joined Will Finch and Zander Masten in the 800-meter race and placed sixth with a time of 2:00.66. Finch placed second with a time of 1:55.31, narrowly trailing the winner by two-tenths of a second. Masten was just behind Finch with a time of 1:58.68.

The Saints had five athletes score in the 3,000-meter run, led by Callahan with a time of 8:47, putting him in second place at the event. Clemens (8:49), Jonah Maichele (8:51), Edward Frey (8:55), and Andrew Ireland (8:57) placed third, fourth, sixth, and eighth at the event, respectively.

Finally, Nate White advanced to the finals in the 60-meter dash and took seventh with a time of 7.03, earning Aquinas two points in the competitive field.

Aquinas will be back in action to compete at NAIA indoor nationals from March 2nd through the 4th in Brookings, South Dakota.