Junior Haran Dunderdale led the Bradley men’s track team to one of its best performances in program history at the Missouri Valley Conference Indoor Championship last weekend in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
Dunderdale won the distance medley while paired with junior Daniel Gagne, sophomore David Shadid and freshman Alec Hartman. He also claimed the mile run title at the indoor championship, posting a time of 4:12.76 to win the event.
By winning the title, Dunderdale became the first ever Bradley man to win an individual track crown at the MVC Indoor Championship. However, Dunderdale will be the first to tell you he could not have done it without his teammates.
“Winning the event was a pretty cool feeling,” Dunderdale said. “During the race, it was definitely a team effort. Any one of us could have won it. I was just fortunate to be in the right position at the right time.”
Overall, the Bradley men placed sixth at the championship with 59 points, which was more than double its best total in any of the last 35 years ‒ showing just how impressive of a team they are.
“This is the deepest and strongest team I’ve ever coached,” head coach Darren Gauson said. “We had the best finish in program history, and our 59 points are more than double what we scored last year. So, we’ve seen huge strides from the men.”
According to Gauson, the team’s increase in points is because they had strong showings and point contributions from various runners as opposed to in years past, when only two or three runners were relied on for point production.
On the women’s side, junior Hannah Witczak placed seventh in the 3,000m run with a time of 10:04.94. Sophomore Sara Piller followed Witczak in the 3,000m run in ninth place with a time of 10:05.86 while senior Rachel Sudbury finished ninth in the mile run with a time of 5:08.98.
“There were definitely signs of encouragement from the women’s team,” Gauson said. “I know when you just look at the results, we’re a little behind some other teams in the conference. But we lost so many girls from last year, and we’re such a young team. This finish, along with some of the recruits coming in, has me excited for the future.”
Overall, the women placed ninth at the meet with 14 total points.
Moving forward, Gauson said he will continue to push the team to get better and hopes to avoid complacency.
“We get a little bit of a break now, and then we go into the outdoor season. So we just have to keep pushing to get better,” Gauson said. “I’m not one to be content unless we’re winning championships and getting people to the national meet. We all need to keep working to improve, which will make us an even stronger team going into outdoors, and it should be a good season for us.”
