‘Hailstorm’: MAAC champion weathers wave of adversity

By Kadie DiGiuseppe

Even after years of setbacks, Hailey Palmer came out victorious in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Indoor Track and Field Championship with the end of her Bronc career approaching. 

Along with the entirety of Rider track and field winning a MAAC Championship for the third year in a row, Palmer, nicknamed “Hailstorm” by her coach, earned second in the 400-meter race to help get the Broncs get up to 142 points which secured their narrow victory. 

The best decision 

Palmer is a senior sprinter from South Plainfield, New Jersey, and is a three-time MAAC champion. She has been with Rider since her freshman year and has gone her entire career without redshirting. 

“I was actually a softball kid. I never had a desire to run track in my life,” said Palmer. “I was always just very fast.” Palmer continued to say that her reasoning for joining her high school’s track team in 2017 was so she could get in shape for that upcoming softball season. She wanted to make the varsity team, despite being a freshman. 

Starting off, Palmer was placed in the 400 race which opened her eyes to competing in races with her teammates. Due to her success in that indoor season, she decided to stick with track for the spring season instead of trying out for the softball team. 

Needless to say, Palmer knew she made the right decision after coming to Rider and deciding to continue running track at the collegiate level. 

Her coach, Brett Harvey described her as a “good” high school runner. Since she started the season after the COVID-19 pandemic, Harvey and his crew did not have as much information to go off of when recruiting. One of the main things that swayed Harvey was the fact that Palmer was a 4.0 student. 

“Life was a lot different back then. I was meeting new people for the first time and it was my first time living on my own. I had a lot of stress from school because I am a biochemistry major so it was a big jump for me,” said Palmer. 

Palmer recalled her freshman year when the Broncs placed second at the MAAC Indoor Track and Field championship behind Monmouth University. She also explained that with the adjustment from high school to college, she did not perform as she had hoped in that season. 

“I think she only ran a faster time than she did in high school maybe once,” said Harvey. She made the conference indoor final but placed last and was left out of the outdoor finals that season. However, her main contributions came that season on the outdoor relays. “In her freshman year, there was no guarantee that this girl was going to be amazing but then that’s just a credit to the work she’s put in year after year to get to where she is now,” said Harvey. 

Battling injuries 

Going into the next two seasons, Palmer and her team knew they had more preparing to do if they wanted to win the title. The hard work paid off for the Broncs and they brought home the MAAC Indoor Track and Field Championship title. That season, Harvey described her as the “breakout story” that helped Rider win that championship.  

After not placing in the championship her freshman year, Palmer finished third in the 300 in 57 seconds which was her season best. Palmer recalled that moment and explained that she never imagined she would have been able to do that. 

However, Palmer explained that the turning point in her career was her outdoor season her sophomore year. Before that, she had felt like her body was “burning out.” That outdoor season she beat her personal record with a time of 56 seconds but her quickest time came in the 400 her junior year, which was in 55.9 seconds. “She arrived that year on a different level,” Harvey said. 

Palmer said that she felt she was in the best shape of her life to start her junior indoor season until she got the flu leading up to the MAAC Indoor Track and Field Championship in 2024. However, she ended up placing second and fourth in her two events which helped Rider pick up its second indoor title in a row. According to Harvey, she was unable to run until the day of championships. 

“There’s people who warm up at championships and are just like ‘I can’t do it today,’ but she went out and found a way to make the finals,” said Harvey. “From my perspective as a coach I was already just proud of the way she rose to the challenge. She had something of a dream season right before that and then to get the flu is a pretty demoralizing thing to go through after doing all that work.” 

Senior season

Palmer said that her and her team knew that this season’s MAAC Championship was going to be a tough one. Not only the fact that the MAAC had expanded to 12 teams but also that Palmer was coming off a minor operation that took place in December 2024. She said that the reason she believes the team came away victorious is because of the growth that went on during the offseason and the years before that. Palmer said that she participated in the 200, 400 and 4×4 relay, once again recovering from an injury where she could not participate in physical activity for six weeks. 

“Somewhere around the middle of January was literally the first time that she could run a step,” said Harvey. “We had to find a way to get her ready to go at the conference meet six weeks later.”

Palmer made it to the finals in both the 200 and the 400 during her senior year MAAC Indoor Championship while also tying her personal record in the 200. She also ran a season best in the 400 with a time of 56.6 seconds. “She’s just a rise to the occasion kid,” said Harvey. 

Harvey said that she has an amazing work ethic and is very thankful for the work that she has put in as  a Bronc. He also said she is incredibly reliable because of that which makes her stand out from the pack.  

“We talk a lot in our program that we’re not interested in what you can do once, we’re interested in repeatable performances,” said Harvey. “As a coach that’s super comforting because you know you can count on that kid to give you a great effort.”