Six Thunder earn All-MIAA Track and Field Honors

2016 Mar 1

Six members of the Trine men's track and field team earned All-MIAA honors, the conference announced Tuesday.

Sam Gilly was named the Field MVP of the conference. Gilly (St. Joseph, Ill./St. Joseph-Ogden) won the weight throw at the inaugural MIAA Indoor Track and Field Championship with a school-record toss of 58 feet, 8.75 inches. The senior earned All-MIAA honors with the first-place finish. That performance currently ranks 11th in the nation and puts Gilly on track for a berth in the NCAA Division III Indoor Track and Field National Championships, set to be held Mar. 11-12 in Grinnell, Iowa. Gilly becomes the first Trine performer to earn MIAA Field MVP honors in either the indoor or outdoor season since the school joined the conference in 2004.

Gilly also placed fifth in the shot put at the conference championship. His personal-record toss of 44 feet, 5.5 inches helped the Thunder pick up key points in taking home four of the top eight finishes in the event.

Also earning All-MIAA honors for Trine at the meet were members of the 4-x-400-meter relay team. Zach Markley (Winamac, Ind./Winamac), Jasper Bassett (Auburn, Ind./DeKalb), Jacob Leopold (Ottawa, Ohio/Ottawa-Glandorf) and Patrick Richardville (Leo, Ind./Leo) clinched Trine's MIAA title on the last event of the day, running a time of 3:23.59 to place first. The time was a season-best for the Thunder in the relay.

The individual members of the relay also saw success elsewhere on the track. Richardville set a new school-record in the 60-meter dash and added a second-place finish in the 200-meter dash. Bassett placed second in the 400-meter dash, while Leopold placed second in the 800-meter run. Markley added fifth-place finishes in both the 200 and 400-meter events.

Nicholas Zak (Saint John, Ind./Hanover Central) rounded out Trine's All-MIAA First Team performers. The freshman ran a blistering time of 4:18.51 in the Mile run to break his own school-record by nine seconds. Zak was able to edge across the finish line 0.25 seconds ahead of the second-place finisher to earn the win. He also placed third in the 800-meter run.

The six performers above led Trine to winning the first-ever MIAA Indoor Track and Field Championship. The Thunder scored 171 points to edge out second-place Calvin by 4.5 points.