Eagles Track and Field soars to new bests despite bad weather; Kirkwood wins shot put

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa--The Faith Track and Field team continued its marked improvement last weekend, despite the frigid temperatures and strong winds, at the Mustang Outdoor Open in Cedar Rapids.

"It was a great meet by the team," said Coach Sauser.  "They all did a great job of competing despite the brutal wind and low temps. We had four new personal best performances by the team and six top ten individual finishers."

For the women, Abbie Blomberg once-again set a new personal best in the 800-meters by over 2 seconds with a time of 2:49.24 and finished 10th. Rebecca Reinertson finished 7th in the 400-meters with a time of 1:11.39.

For the men, Jon Hendricks ran a new personal best in the 400-meters by over 3 seconds dropping it down to 57.90 and Evan McKinney ran a personal best 1:02.63 in the 400-meter hurdles, finishing 7th.

Ryan Hughes topped his personal best time for the second week in a row in the 1,500-meters by over 6 seconds, dropping it to 4:44.

Tanner Van Beek threw into a fierce wind but finished 5th in the javelin with a throw of 40.85 meters.

Jacob Kirkwood had his best performance of the season, winning the shot put with a season-best throw of 15.04 meters, beating Grahm Johnson, the defending NCCAA National Champion, from North Central.  He also finished 3rd in the discus with a throw of 42.94 meters. 

The Eagles look to keep their positive momentum going this coming Saturday at the Dick Young Invitational in Grinnell.