Indoor Track Men Set More School Records at Camel City Meet

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - The Columbia College men's indoor track and field team competed at the Camel City Sprint and Distance Meets at the JDL Fasttrack in NC in the mostly NCAA D-1 and D-2 meet and set numerous school records.

Setting a school-record for the men were freshman Nevan Gaither in the triple jump on Saturday, freshman Alex Smith in the 400 meters on Friday, freshman DJ McGriff-Agers in the 600 meters Friday and finally grad senior Owen Jensen in the 3000 meters on Saturday.

A. Smith led off the weekend by finishing an impressive 6th overall out of 31 and the 23rd best time in the NAIA coming across in 48.7 seconds placing 2nd among D-2 and D-3 teams while posting the top time in the conference. McGriff-Agers then placed 9th of 33 en route to running a school record time of 1:22.66 in the 600 meters. In the 200 meters on Friday, sophomore Ashton Pouncie led the way placing 9th of 62 in 22.2 seconds while freshman Meshach Guadeloupe was 14th out of 47 in the 400 meters in 50.9 seconds followed by sophomore Kamron Holman coming in 16th in 51.2 seconds.

Junior Willy Calcano then came in 47th in 7.2 seconds in the 60 meter sprint prelims on Friday afternoon with Tijai Hartwell placing 51st of 74 in 7.23 seconds.

In the distance events on Saturday, Jensen ran a time of 9:17 in the 3K to place 40th and set the school-record while freshman Will Parker was 19th of 26 in the 1000 meters in 3:07. Freshman Jusaint Conde was also 59th in the 800 meters in 2:18.

Gaither's school-record mark of 13.52 meters (44 ft) in the Triple Jump then saw him place 12th of 23 to set a top 70 NAIA jump while freshman Darius Otero also placed 19th in the TJ at 12.03 meters. In the Shot Put Saturday, CC was led by freshman Amon Moise placing 30th with a mark of 10.5 meters and junior Guruveer Jhaj coming in 33rd at 10.29 meters.

In the Long Jump on Friday, sophomore Jayden Young led CC placing 25th of 41 with a mark of 6.39 meters (nearly 21 ft) while Otero was 28th at 6.18 meters. Jaden Reed's weight throw of 13.05 meters (over 42 ft) then had him finish 25th and junior Jonathan Davis come in 27th at 12.6 meters.

Finally in the 4x400 meter relay on Friday evening, the team of A. Pouncie, Corey Liggins, M. Guadeloupe, and A. Smith finished 5th overall out of 11 schools in 3:24. The Koalas were 5th among D-2 teams and first among D-3 and NAIA schools. CC also finished ahead of both D-1 Wake Forest teams as well.

The men will next go to their last chance meet next weekend in Tryon, NC near UNC-Asheville on Feb. 13-14 to try and qualify for the AAC Indoor Tournament and/or NAIA National tournament.