ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Wilmington College freshman Brady Vilvens won a national championship Saturday at the NCAA Division III Outdoor Track and Field Championships.

The Wilmington High School graduate earned so much more respect with how he won it.

In all, Vilvens shared national championship capped the most successful national meet in WC history.

The Quakers tallied four All-America performances including an individual national championship to finish the event in ninth place.

“What an amazing three days,” head coach Ron Combs said. “Everything started right for us in the 10,000-meter run on Thursday, and we picked it up on Saturday morning and got the momentum going again. Our four guys just had a great vibe and great confidence when we got here. That started with a great practice on Wednesday.”

Vilvens, competing in his first outdoor national meet, entered the high jump seeded 19th in the 22-athlete field. The former Hurricane standout promptly moved into the top half of the field as only 10 competitors cleared 6-7.5.

More importantly, Vilvens was 1-of-6 to clear 6-7.75 without a miss.

And though the sophomore didn’t clear 6-8.75 on his first try, he did on the second. Only three competitors remained, and Vilvens and Harry Rienecker-Found of Tufts University leaped over the bar set at 6-9.75 on the first attempt. Bryce Ellinger of Susquehanna University also cleared, but it took him two attempts.

None of the three individuals were able to jump over the bar set at 6-11, which meant a jump-off between Vilvens and Rienicker-Found for the national championship.

What happened next was one of the best displays of sportsmanship seen at the highest stage of NCAA Division III athletics. Rienicker-Found was injured on one of his attempts at 6-11, and even though Vilvens would have won the jump-off for that reason, he elected to not participate, resulting in a co-national championship between the two. Vilvens is the first national champion for the Quakers since Christian Patterson won the same event nine years ago.

“Brady winning the national championship was just unreal,” said Combs. “I’ve always felt that he had potential, but in the last few weeks, he really just seemed to find some consistency with his approach. I’m really proud of what transpired in the high jump and how it all ended.”

Next up on the day for WC was the hammer throw. Borgan, who qualified for the national meet by utilizing a Last Chance Meet earlier in the month, rebounded from a foul and a poor throw to heave a personal-best 193-6 that earned him a sixth-place finish and All-America honors.

JJ Durr, who was seeded fifth in the event, placed exactly there with a 193-11. The All-America honor is the first of Durr’s career after two narrow misses at indoor nationals the previous two years.

Simon Heys, who garnered All-American honors with a fourth-place finish in 10,000-meter run on Thursday, closed out the meet for Wilmington with a time of 15:02.77 in the 5,000-meter run to place him 17th.

As a team, the Quakers finished with 21 points to finish in ninth place, the highest outdoor finish in program history. MIT won the national title with 60.5 points while two other Ohio Athletic Conference (OAC) institutions – John Carroll University (T-3rd) and the University of Mount Union (sixth) also finished in the top 10.

“We started talking last year that we thought we could have a pretty good group for 2024, so I guess we are a year ahead of schedule,” Combs commented. “All of our guys that scored are back and we have more people that are capable of getting to the national meet if they put the work in.”