Charger Rundown: Max Versluys 9/29/2026

0:00Hello and welcome to the Charger rundown show where each week we give you an update on all that's happening in the Charger sports world. I'm Caleb Lee and you're listening to Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. The Hillsdale College football team got back on track at home on Saturday, shaking off a tough loss on the road the previous week with a blazing hot start in a 38-7 win over visiting Thomas Moore. Hillsdale scored touchdowns on each of its first three drives and overcame a third quarter lull to pull away for the victory. The Chargers opened the game with the ball and marched 74 yards on eight plays. Undeterred by a penalty that nullified a wide open touchdown to Andrew Kinesney. Four plays later, quarterback Eli Boyce found tailback Ben Gisew on a screen pass to the right for a six yard touchdown that gave the Chargers an early lead.

1:00Thomas Moore moved the ball to midfield on the ensuing drive, but after a sack on second and four by Hillsdale's Drake Badger, Colin Moro forced a fumble on a short screen pass in the backfield by the Saints and freshman Matthew McElroy pounced on the loose ball to give the Chargers possession. Hillsdale made immediate use of the shortfield to strike quickly as Colin McCurnen moved the chains on quick passes to Kinesney and Shea Ruddy to get in the red zone, then scrambled to the end zone himself and powered through a would-be tackler on an 11 yard touchdown run that gave the Chargers a 14-0 lead less than 10 minutes into the game. The Chargers defense came up big a second time on Thomas Moore's ensuing possession. As Luke Penola and Coste this stopped the Saints running back a yard short of the first down at fourth and two on the Hillsdale 47 to get the ball back. Driving the other direction, boys found freshman tight and will Simpson wide open in a seam in the middle of the field for a 30 yard score to give Hillsdale a 21-0 lead.

2:01Hillsdale was in control of the game, but Thomas Moore asserted itself defensively to slow down the contest, stopping Hillsdale on back-to-back drives to prevent the Chargers from extending the lead and keeping the deficit at 21-0 heading into the half. A slow start by the Chargers coming out of the break gave Thomas Moore some momentum, as the Saints recovered a Hillsdale fumble and got on the board with a 44 yard touchdown pass on the ensuing play early in the third quarter. On Hillsdale's next drive, Thomas Moore picked off a pass, their second interception of the game, and suddenly the Saints were threatening with wind at their sales. The Chargers defense however stepped up once again for Hillsdale. Evan Bynek recovered a Saints fumble to kill the drive off the turnover, and after the Chargers failed to move the ball and gave Thomas Moore another shot, Coss Davis and Layton Scott broke up a deep ball to get the Saints off the field once more. That proved to be the stand that Hillsdale needed to put the game away. The Chargers capitalized on the ensuing possession, with Shayy Ruddy scoring from four yards

3:02out on a run to restore Hillsdale's 21-point advantage with a minute 15 to play in the third quarter. The Chargers would tack on two more scores to pull away in the fourth quarter. Inesney was able to get on the board in the fourth after having his touchdown in the first quarter wiped out, catching a shovel pass from Avery Holt and rumbling four yards for the score to put the Chargers up 35 to 7. And Dylan D'Dario was true from 34 yards on a field goal attempt with a minute 18 to go to give Hillsdale a 38 to 7 lead that would stand as the final. Hillsdale outgained Thomas Moore 393 yards to a 188, overcoming a sloppy game offensively that included three turnovers and nine penalties. Four quarterbacks played for the Chargers, with McCurnen going 11 for 15 with 105 passing yards and 23 yards in a touchdown on the ground. While boys sled Hillsdale and rushing yards with 66 yards on 10 carries and also was 8 to 13 for 96 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions. Holt added 31 yards rushing along with the four yard touchdown pass.

4:05Issue finished with 30 yards on four carries for Hillsdale and Ruddy added 29 yards and a rushing touchdown on six attempts. While also leading Hillsdale through the air with four catches for 68 yards, Tut Carico added five catches for 48 yards as well. Several players had strong games for the Chargers who are one long pass away from pitching their second shot out of the season. Luke Pinola led Hillsdale with eight tackles while Evan Bynick checked in five tackles, two for loss, a sack and two quarterback hurries. Jonah Jensen added four tackles and two pass breakups, Colin Moro chipped in three tackles, one for loss and the force fumble and Ryan Ruddy picked off a pass as well for the Chargers. Hillsdale improves to three and one overall and one in one in G-Mac play while remaining a perfect three and oh at home. Next week Hillsdale will travel to Lake Erie for a 1pm kickoff looking to keep themselves in the G-Mac title race, but a homecoming clash against currently undefeated Walsh on the horizon if the Chargers can get by the storm.

5:09We're now going to go to an interview that Daniel and I recorded with our member of our shotgun team, Max versus loose. So stick around, you're listening to the Charger rundown on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Hello and welcome to the Charger rundown, the show where each week we give you an update on what's happening in the Charger sports world. Today Daniel and I are interviewing a special guest, Max, could you please introduce yourself? Hello there, my name is Max for loose. I'm a sophomore member of the Hillsdale shotgun team. Max, thank you so much for being here. So I guess the first question I want to ask you is how is being on the shooting team similar to what you might expect from being on any other athletic team and how is our shooting team different than a lot of our other athletic programs? The biggest difference is we get made fun of this a lot of whether or not we are actually an athletic team and I would argue yes we are with athletics being an artistic expression

6:16of bodily excellence even though we're not necessarily like physically capable, like we are moving in unison with the target. We travel for sports similar to other teams, we have regular competitions, we have regular practices, all of us are here on scholarship like many of the other athletes on the college's roster. What separates us I would say mostly is probably that athletic side. A lot of people make fun of us for not being athletes but I'd stand a differ. For our listeners, a lot of us are more familiar with football, basketball, volleyball, could you explain what shooting and what kind of competitions you guys engage in, what different teams you guys have, can you just overall break down all the events and what it entails training for them? So in American shotgunting we compete in six main disciplines, ski doubles, trap doubles,

7:18sporting clays and super sporting clays. Colleges around the country have different sections of their teams if you will that compete in each of those events where what separates Hillsdale is we have we currently we have 16 current members who compete in all six of these disciplines very effectively. Yeah, thanks for giving this a little rundown of kind of this shooting sports program. When did you yourself first become involved with this? How early on did you start I guess shooting using your shotgun? I started at the ripe old age of 11 years old with around Christmas of 2018. I had saved up some money that I wanted to buy my first gun with and so my dad and I went down to Bob's gun and tackle and Hastings Michigan and went there took a look at the shotgun section found a cheap American tactical over under 20 gauge and bought it brought it

8:20out to the range. My dad owns a landscaping company and Grand Rapids and there's a couple that works for him that their son was on the team that I shot for in high school. He found out about this and invited me out to the range and after we got done he was like you know the team you can join in my down like there's a team and so I went out to practice with them on the following Wednesday and I kept going back a shot with them all through middle and high school and then got picked up by the chargers my senior high school. Could you elaborate more on how you decided to come to Hillsdale how you discovered Hillsdale and what was it like choosing Hillsdale after looking around a bunch of different colleges or if Hillsdale was just the perfect one Hillsdale I would say was the perfect one. I first found out about it eighth grade I came here for a shooting competition at the John Anthony Halter shooting center and my family and I looked at their the core curriculum that they teach here the classical liberal education that they offer here and it was

9:22in line with our conservative Christian values and with the nice cherry on top of the opportunity for a pretty hefty scholarship to come here and compete in the sport that I love. Yeah and I guess I'd like to talk with you a little more about the academic side and something we like to ask all of the athletes who come in here on this show what has been your experience kind of adjusting to Hillsdale like adjusting to the workload which can definitely be a challenge and tell us a little bit more about like what you're studying what you've enjoyed what classes you're taking so currently I'm going to I'm technically undecided however for all impotence this part all intents and purposes I'm an accounting major when it comes to like sport academic balance it's setting a setting aside the those times that I can let go of the sport and really hone in on my academics for me personally that's Tuesday and Thursday afternoons because we practice Monday Wednesday Friday from 2 45 to 4 30 it's been it's been tricky being accounting

10:31major there's 55 credits in that major and they're not easy classes but I think I've managed. Yeah you mentioned practice could you explain what exactly a shooting practice entails. Yeah so we're on 245 we all meet up at the team building at the Halter Center and we'll go we'll get briefed by our coach of what the plan is for the day usually we'll run we'll run through a mental workout because only half at least 80% of the sport is mental and then we'll get our supply we'll get our guns we'll get our shooting supplies we'll get our allotment of ammo usually we shoot a hundred targets a day and so we'll get a hundred shells and we'll head out to go shoot either ski trap or sporting clays whatever it is our coaches decide that we're going to shoot yeah um getting back into so talking about this season specifically um how have the competitions been going what's your

11:35schedule look like competition wise for those who might be unfamiliar do you guys have like a season do you have like a certain time of the year that you're most business with competitions or is it more spread out we do have a season it's not as defined as like a football or baseball season the main season is gearing up right now for the month of October we have three shoots that we're going to go to three weekends in a row starting this weekend we're we going down to morango high oh for the upper Midwest conference championships we have been shooting a couple of competitions since then we've had a couple of open sporting clays tournaments where they're just tournaments that anybody can show up to and we've had it so at the last one we went to in Grand Rapids we we cleaned house and what's it like to travel for those events do you travel as a team do you drive yourself what's that process look usually we travel as a team usually we'll all load up in the big passenger bus or we'll take two vans there's 15 of us there's usually 15 to 16 of us will go at a

12:36time plus two or three coaches and we'll load up in the buses and usually we'll either stay at a small Airbnb or a hotel I'll except for nationals in the spring and a march will we'll fly down and get the rental cars and stay in the Airbnb and that one's always the most interesting being just a house in Texas with a bunch of coaches and athletes and it's a great time so as we heard you guys spend as a team you guys spend six hours a week between the three practices together you also travel to tournaments together how else do you bond with your team and is everyone all friends or do you guys move out into different clusters I would say a lot of us have moved out into different clusters we have a bunch of the guys who are in the Sigma Chi for charity we have a couple of the guys who are two of them are in Chi Omega and two of them are in Pi Betify myself and Hunter Kildall are currently in Legion 12 and a couple of the other guys

13:38are in some other groups but we always take time throughout the semester we'll usually get dinners together at least once a week throughout the course of events every now and again we'll have game nights at one of the off campus houses where our teammates live and we'll usually go to the big events like welcome party or CHP together on those competition days do you have a routine that gets you locked in gets you in the zone you mentioned that so much of the sport is mental do you have a specific routine that you feel helps you focus when you're out there competing or right before you're about to compete I do yes so before during the competition I it's very much a gentleman sport like kind of like a golf is it's very quiet very professional and I don't talk to anybody and I I stay in my own head and I I'll often spend I'll often spend that time when I'm not shooting either praying or I will focus on some of the dumbest things I'm managing will I'll

14:45notice the blades of grass I'll look at the clouds I look at the trees in the distance just to keep my mind from overloading on thinking about the targets beforehand usually I will run through mental visualization of the competition going well building up that confidence because it's very it can be very intimidating trying to do this without because you want to avoid being cocky so to speak but there is a there is a certain element where you have to build up that self confidence and it sometimes can sound like cockiness in your own head but you have to learn to embrace it and usually I'll run through a couple of songs that I enjoy a space by motorhead we didn't start the fire by Billy Joel it's I have a strange playlist and my favorite thing to do is I will picture there's a good friend of mine Brent Edwards he is quite possibly the greatest

15:45ski tutor in the entire state of Michigan he's won many many state championships in Detroit I've shot with him many many times and I will he and he's the most humble genuine guy that you'll ever meet in the sport and I'll just imagine that I'm shooting with him and I'll kind of have like the mindset of like what would Brent do while he while I'm out here. That's great. Now that you're in your second year of being the shooting team being at Hillsdale could you tell us about your favorite memory or something really fun that you remember. Probably my one of my favorite memories is during homecoming last year when during the banner drop when everybody goes to try and claim the central couch for the banner drop we had taken the front entrance but the back entrance was being guarded by Galway and when the pandemonium ensued of everybody running into go get the couch. Christian brosa

16:47Russell man japan and I went and grabbed their grill that they had been pre-gaming behind the back door on and went and stole it and stuck it in the Simpson lobby and they were all very confused and they came out and found out no grill and all their cookies scattered across the patio. Yeah I think one thing I mean you're in Simpson dorm like me and I think we've got a great culture there. I want you to just tell us a little more like what do you like to do outside of shotgun what are you up to in the dorm what are you up to you know activity wise because this is obviously such a big part of who you are but it's not the whole part so if you could kind of paint like what else you're up to on a typical week when you're not preparing for competitions when you're not shooting. Yeah when I'm not out shooting like I said before I'm a member of a Legion 12 Fulminata where men's Christian organization on campus dedicated to building building up men physically spiritually and mentally currently I'm on the leadership board on the treasure I'm in the treasure position currently. I also am a member of the Catholic Society and usually on Sundays when

17:53I'm not traveling I love Frederick Woodward and I another member of Legion 12 will often set up carpool rides to go up to the traditional Latin mass up in Jackson it's a beautiful service and we love bringing people up there with us. What else and then just things in the dorm there's a bunch of I've met a bunch of great friends in the dorm I met both of you my freshman year I've met my current roommate John Paulsella I've met Andre Laaru I've met Henry Kildall who's also in the shooting team with me and the amount of close friendships that I've developed and just from living in the same dorm with fellow likeminded men has it's truly astonishing. Do you have a one of like only preface this what is the craziest story you have about the dorm that we can put out on there and say we can put out on there. Oh man crazy story that we can put out on air just any

18:54shenanigans because there's quite a lot that happens there is probably the craziest story I have is when last year my freshman year somehow the McIntyre R.A. has gotten word that the Galway feast event was going to be that they were going to bring it like in front of McIntyre and they weren't too happy about that so they call the bunch of the seniors and seniors and Simpson and for some reason none of them could go down to like prepare for it so for some reason they picked me to go down there and start setting up for the retaliation and so we brought down what all did we bring down we brought water milk maple syrup flower water balloons and somehow I ended up being the one who is organizing about probably 15 to 20 Simpson dudes and probably 40 Mac girls to lead the charge against someone they came running down the hill towards McIntyre and we lit them up with flower maple syrup water

19:55balloons it was amazing and just to for our listeners who may not be familiar feast is an event where the men of Galway dorm on campus run around shirtless at on 10 at 10 30 every Thursday night and do push options in front of the women's dorm genuinely just you know be loud and about on campus and ruin everybody's thirst so just to add a little context to that story I think yeah that really speaks to kind of the the stuff you know that happens in college that's fun and it's not just you know you're not just a member of the shooting team you're a student too and you know you there's this complete picture of you but I do want to get back again to this current shooting season yeah obviously you've still got a lot of season left what are your goals moving forward not just you know personal but also for the team overall so the teams ultimate goal this is true for every year this year specifically because we haven't done in a while is to bring home a national championship

20:58this this March in from San Antonio Texas we're a D2 team so in shotgun D2 just the division just refers to how big the team is and D2 is anybody from I believe 15 to 20 and so we fall right into that category and our goal our ultimate goal for every year is to bring home that national championship personally I'm hoping to bring back a national championship in either skeet or skeet doubles from that event and I'm also looking to bring back a bring back um skeet and skeet doubles championships from this current conference championship that we have this weekend and then we have another one in Illinois the following weekend which event do you prefer personally do you have one that you like more than the other so in high school I shot mostly American skeet and skeet doubles which for those who aren't aware or may know just a little bit about shooting it's when there's two towers there's a high house and a low house and the

22:00cross in the middle and basically you run in a you walk in a semi circle around the two towers and shoot the two different targets from different angles I did that all through high school and then sporting clases my other uh passion project just because it's like as I've heard it referred to it's like golf with a shotgun you're walking through the woods you have every course is different you never know what you're gonna get um and trap for uh all the people who may know anything about shooting is often looked down upon because it's boring and the targets are going the exact same direction every time and and the immortal words of our captain davisay trap is like getting a lobotomy so wow you know I have to admit um I was not super familiar with the ins and outs of shooting sports but I really enjoyed you know listening you having this conversation and I know I think I speak for daniel when I say I really hope that you know these listeners out here get to see this new side of like what hill still has to offer in our athletics program and just competing you know

23:01representing the school in general so max thank you so much for you know coming on for this interview it's been a pleasure thanks for having guys you've been listening to the charger run down on radio free hillsdale 101.7 FM