MARION, IN – The men's Track and Field team had a solid day at the IWU Invitational among a 19 team field yesterday.  It was a day filled with a lot of Personal Record's (PR), which is good news for Head Coach Dante Ottolini for this early in the training cycle. 

Top Performances/finishes  of the day:

                     SPRINTS

SAU had 3 runners advance to the finals of the 60m.  Dewayne Gray (Red Shirt) won the 60 with a time of 6.93.  Kelly Maxwell finished 4th with a new personal best time of 7.16, now the second fastest in SAU history.  Garrett Reid finished 7th with a personal best time of 7.26 and now moves up to the number 4 spot in SAU history.

Gray also finished 3rd in the 200m with a time of 22.58, even though he and Maxwell had tough lane assignments racing out of lane 1 and 2.  The NCAA does not even contest the indoor 200m due to the lane advantage due to tight turns. 

Michael Forsythe earned an 8th place finish in the 400 with a time of 52.83.

Brandon White finished 7th in the 60m hurdles with a new personal best time of 8.84 moving him up to 4th all time for SAU

                Middle Distance

Jared Lauber finished 7th in the 600m in his first race of the season clocking a time of 1:27.43

Nathan Martin won the 800m with a personal best time of 1:57, which is 9th all-time indoors for SAU and teammates Ian Miller finished 4th with a 2:01 and Andrew Guzdial finished 5th with a 2:02.

Martin doubled with a win in the mile with another personal best time of 4:16.08 moving him into the number 6th spot all-time.  Nathan Anderson finished the day with a 3rd place finish and personal best time of 4:39.

                Distance 

It was a tough day for the distance squad but Kyle Anderson was able to come through for the Cougars with a second place finish in the 3000m with a time of 8:48.08 

               Jumps

Aaron Cory finished 3rd in the high jump for the cougars with a new indoor personal best mark of 6'2.75. 

Pole vaulting trio of Tim Canfield, Jeremy Rogers (unattached) and Aaron Austin went 3rd, 4th, and 5th on the day, all clearing 14'6. 

"Today was a fun day for the squad," said Ottolini.  "The sprint/jumps portion of the squad has been working all fall and now have a chance to see the fruits of that work start to pay off.  We had a lot of guys hit personal best marks on legs that are not fresh from a full week of training.  The goal of our training and race cycles is to be at our best for the League Championships at the end of April.  Today was a great building block in that process.  I was most excited about the investment they showed in each other as a team today and the sportsmanship they displayed as they competed."

The men will be back in action when they compete in The Big Meet at Grand Valley State Univeristy on February 9.