LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. - Five men's track and field teams were underway last week as they continue to fine tune before the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference championships.
Colorado College traveled north to compete at the Colorado Invitational in Boulder. The Tigers' performance was highlighted by Damon Hardwick's pair of season-best times in the 400 (50.98) and 200 (23.31), while Paul Olsen and Max Blackburn also recorded season-best times of 4:14.26 and 4:16.92, respectively, in the 1500 meter run. Ben Hall rounded out the team's top performers with a 17th place finish in the high jump with a season-best leap of 5'11.75.
The University of Dallas, Southwestern University and Texas Lutheran University all competed in Seguin, Texas at the Bulldog Relays. Texas Lutheran won the meet with 370.5 points, while Southwestern finished third with 64 points and Dallas took fifth with 47 points.
For Dallas, Prince Giadolor took fourth in the 100 meter dash, recording a time of 11.23 seconds before helping the team's 4x100 relay to a second-place finish. Giadolor was joined by Charles Obegolu, Kevin McGuirk and Patrick Andrews in the race, and the team finished with time of 46.21 seconds. McGuirk picked up an individual top-five finish in the 400 meter hurdles, posting a time of 1:03.59 for fourth place, followed by Andrews in sixth place (1:04.56). In the one mile run, Joseph Kilmer took fifth place with a time of 4:53.95, a new Dallas record. He also competed in the 5000 meter run, taking sixth place wit ha time of 16:53.61.
In the field events, Marcos Carmona took sixth place in the discus throw with a toss of 34.59 meters, while McGuirk finished fifth in the javelin (39.23m).
Southwestern's meet was highlighted by Tyler Adams, as he continued to rewrite the record books, breaking his own record in the shot put after posting a distance of 13.46m to finish fourth in the event. Adams secured a third place finish in the hammer throw with a toss of 45.14m. Devin Rosas had a pair of second place finishes on the day. He posted a jump of 1.82m in the high jump and 6.49m in the long jump to earn points for the Pirates in both events. Tyrell Dunlap was hot on Rosas' heels in the long jump, finishing in third at 5.52m while Brandon Jenkins took fourth with a jump of 5.49m. Jenkins also tied for fourth in the high jump, clearing 1.77m and Dunlap finished fourth in the triple jump with a jump of 11.47m.
Texas Lutheran came up big at the home meet, winning 11 events and setting two new stadium records. The pair of records came from Garrett Garza, who won the shot put with a new stadium record toss of 51 feet, 8-1/2 inches and Trevor Roberts, who took the javelin title with a stadium record toss of 154-8. Paris Foster won two individual titles - the 100 hurdles and the 200. Foster collected the 100 hurdles victory with a time of 14.89 seconds. He won the 200 in 22.08. TLU went 1-2-3 in the 200.
Ian Hons and Eli Augusta each won an individual event and ran on a winning relay team. Hons won the 400 hurdles in 1:00.23 and ran on the victorious men's 4x400 relay with Connor Thompson, Dillan Wendel and Michael Wong, while Augusta won the open 400 and ran on the winning 4x100 relay with Thompson, Wong and Marquis Brown. Zachary Velasquez took the open 800 title with a time of 2:02.51, leading a Bulldog sweep of the top five places. Christopher Monroe won the 100 with a time of 11.11, and Dalton Masters picked up the win in the high jump with a clearance of 6-1 1/2.
Trinity University traveled to the Pomona-Pitzer Invitational last week, while elsewhere Matt Love was breaking records. The senior thrower set a new Trinity record in discus with a toss of 52.60 meters, improving on the previous record of 52.43 meters, set in 2013.
The Tigers' 4x100 meter relay team made up of Christopher Stewart, Raphael Martin, Christian Matta and Blair Walker took down the school record in the event with a time of 41.53 seconds to highlight the California trip. Stewart and Matta also competed in the 100 meter dash. Stewart finished in 11.05 seconds and Matta just behind his teammate at 11.19 seconds. Martin led Trinity with his time of 22.50 seconds in the 200 meter dash, followed closely by Matta (22.53) and Stewart (22.71).
Walker and Martin were also part of the sixth-place relay team in the 4x400 meter race, joined by Seve Rodriguez and Tee Hill. Rodriguez moved to ninth in school history in the 400 meter dash with his time of 49.75 seconds, which was good for 14th place today. He was just 0.03 seconds from the best time this season for the Tigers in the event. Walker finished in 16th place, trailing his teammate by just 0.06 seconds. Cody Hall was fourth in the 110 meter hurdles with a time of 14.65 seconds. Benjamin Witt was 17th in the 400 hurdles with a Trinity season-best time of 59.09 seconds.
Michael Erickson finished second in the 3000 meter steeplechase with a personal-record time of 9:23.66. He was followed closely by Jacob Hammond in eighth place and Daniel Henkes in 15th in the distance event. Elliot Blake posted a personal record as well with his sixth-place time of 15:09.24 in the 5000 meter run, which is also the best time this season for the Tigers. Harry Bellow finished 16th in the 5K, as well as coming in at just over four minutes in the 1500 meter event.
