by Benny Benton
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Barton College junior Austin Edmonds broke the two-minute barrier in the 800-meter run Saturday at the UCS Invitational, and in doing so broke his own school indoor record established in the opening meet of the year at the same JDL Fast Track facility.
Three other school records were surpassed in the meet. Freshman Zachary Thompson improved upon his own mark in the 60-meter dash, while both the 4x400-meter relay team and the distance medley squad established new bests.
Edmonds, a Sandy Ridge, N.C., resident, recorded a time of 1:59.82 for his new school record in the 800-meter run, roughly three-quarters of a second better than his old mark of 2:00.52. He remains fourth-best in Conference Carolinas this season at that distance.
Fellow junior Daniel Strutton was a part of both record-setting relay squads. He joined with John Aranda, Kendrick Smith and Jason Morgan in running the 4x400-meter relay in a time of 3:42.17, which narrowly surpassed the old Barton indoor mark of 3:43.35. He also teamed with three freshmen – Luar Mercado Lopez, Yacine Gharbi and Tyler Amerson – to knock more than 12 seconds off the old record in the distance medley, lowering the time from 11:42.95 down to 11:30.43.
The final school record to be knocked down was by Thompson with a sprint of 7.91 seconds in the 60-meter dash, which shaved just over a tenth of a second off his benchmark time of 8.02 established in the season-opening Winston-Salem State Open.
Thompson also produced a personal best in the 200-meter run with a time of 26.7 seconds. He was joined by Aranda, who posted a personal record in the 400-meter run with a mark of 54.09 seconds, and by fellow freshman Hunter Hinson, who recorded a personal best of 8.69 meters in the shot put.
Hinson's teammate in the shot put, sophomore Trevor Kyle, produced the top finish of the day relative to the competition, as he placed 14th in a field of 34. Kyle and all of the other Bulldogs were part of a standout field composed mostly of NCAA Division I athletes, including many from the Atlantic Coast Conference.
In its next meet, Barton will see only league foes in the 2014 Conference Carolinas (Indoor) Championships, which will take place on Sunday, Feb. 23, once again at JDL Fast Track.
