by Benny Benton
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Sophomore Semaj Street and freshman Angel Alvarez both recorded all-conference performances in helping the Barton College men's indoor track and field team to a sixth-place finish at the 2015 Conference Carolinas Indoor Championships Sunday at JDL Fast Track.
They also accounted for two of the six Barton school records that fell in the meet and were part of 19 personal records broken by team members during the event.
Street, a Fayetteville, N.C., resident, shattered his old school record of seven seconds flat in the 60-meter dash when he blazed the track with a time of 6.93 seconds while leading his heat in the preliminary round. He improved the mark again in the 60-meter finals, recording a time of 6.92 seconds while finishing third in the eight-man showdown. In doing so, he fell just .02 seconds short of meeting the NCAA provisional time.
In addition to six points for his third-place showing in that event, Street also earned three points for the team with a sixth-place finish among 25 runners in the 200-meter dash.
Alvarez, a resident of Orlando, Fla., also broke his own school record, improving his 400-meter mark by three-tenths of a second to 50.39 seconds while coming in third among 25 participants.
In winning a spot on the podium for a top-three finish, Street and Alvarez also earned all-conference designation for the first time in their careers.
Together, Street and Alvarez combined for 15 of Barton's 27 points in the meet. The Bulldogs also received four points from Trevor Kyle (fifth in the shot put), three points from Austin Edmonds (sixth in the 800-meter run) and one point each for eighth-place finishes by Daniel Strutton (800 meters), Lashley Winter (mile), Edwin Dhaiti (60-meter hurdles), Justin Alford (pole vault), and the distance medley team of Tyler Amerson, Jose Simpre, Sebaston Barrett and Luar Mercado-Lopez.
Alford, Kyle and Amerson joined Vinson Murphy in setting Barton records – all four by extending their own marks. Alford improved his pole vault record by a quarter-meter to 3.50, and Murphy added a tenth of a meter to his long jump, now 5.59 meters. Amerson lowered his time in the 3000-meter run by more than nine seconds to 9:38.32, and Kyle tacked on a full meter to his weight throw mark, now 11.17 meters.
Posting personal records in the meet were Martin Derico in the 60-meter dash; Alvarez and Jahmoul Gordon in the 200-meter dash; Strutton, Winter, Barrett and Cody Warner in the 800-meter run; Dhaiti in both the 400-meter run and 60-meter hurdles; Murphy in the 60-meter hurdles; and Hunter Hinson in both the shot put and the weight throw. Barrett also recorded a benchmark PR by competing in the 5000-meter run for the first time in his career.
Barton finished sixth in the meet for a second straight year. However, this year the Bulldogs finished ahead of two teams in doing so, while last year there were only seven competing squads.
University of Mount Olive won the team title for the second year in row with an event-record 191 points. Limestone College was second with 143 points, followed by North Greenville University with 117, King University with 72 and Lees-McRae with 44. Trailing Barton's 27 points were newcomer Pfeiffer University with 15 points and Belmont Abbey College with 12.
Barton will open its outdoor season on March 13 and 14 at the Seahawk Invitational, hosted by UNC Wilmington.
