“All three are good ‘adds’ for us and make a lot of sense in a myriad of ways,” he said. “When we started looking at this — and we looked at probably a dozen different potential additions — these three jumped out to us. (They’re) financially logical and, from a geographic standpoint, very logical.”
The Raiders have been fielding men’s cross country teams in the fall, but those runners could only compete individually in distance events in track in the winter and spring. Green Bay is the only other Horizon League school with men’s cross country but no track.
“The short-term plan is to keep our focus on the men’s distance side and every year build the program bigger and branch out into more events,” said Rick Williamson, who is in his 10th year coaching Raider runners.
“As far as helping with recruiting and giving the men something to focus in the winter and spring, championship wise, it’s going to be a huge boost.”
The men finished sixth at the 11-team league cross country meet last October, but they have a promising future. Freshman Tayton Hess made second-team all-conference with a 14th-place effort, while freshman Jacob Poling (23rd) and sophomore Alex McCarty (27th) also had strong showings.
“This is probably the best men’s group we’ve ever had, and most of them are coming back next year,” Williamson said. “For them to do that with one hand tied behind their back is fairly amazing.”
Almost 100 D-I colleges offer women’s bowling (the first NCAA championship was in 2004), including five in Ohio. And the Raiders already are having success at the club level.
They won the women’s club nationals in 2015 and ‘19 and had a third-place finish in 2013.
They don’t have a coach yet, but Grant said he’s close to hiring one.
And more expansion plans for Raider athletics may be in the works.
“I could envision us adding more sports in the coming years. Everything is on the table in that regard — if we can make it work financially and if it makes sense from an enrollment standpoint (adding students),” Grant said. “We’ll keep looking at options beyond these three additions.”
The Raiders’ current sports have been thriving. Men’s and women’s basketball, volleyball and men’s soccer have all notched their first NCAA wins in the last three years.
Men’s baseball is a regular NCAA participant, while men’s golf made the tournament for the first time in 15 years in 2019.
“We’ve had a really great three- or four-year run. It doesn’t make a lot of sense that we’ve done it (being relatively under-funded), but we have,” Grant said.
“With uncertainties financially and uncertainties with a pandemic, it makes it all the more impressive.”
About the Author