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Track and Field competes at Indiana University's Gladstein Invite
By Matt Green
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- The Shorter University men and women's track and field teams traveled north to Bloomington, Ind., over the weekend to compete in the Gladstein Invitational hosted by Indiana University.
The Hawks and Lady Hawks continued preparations for the NAIA Indoor Track and Field National Championships that will commence in a little over a month. Once again, Shorter's student-athletes showed progress while competing against a host of NCAA Division I schools that included names such as Oklahoma, Memphis, Southern Illinois, Louisville, Xavier and Butler, among others.
Shorter's women excelled throughout the competition. In the 60 meter dash, Lakeisha Spikes and Brittany Sewell qualified for the NAIA National Championships with respective times of 7.81 and 7.83.
Spikes also competed in the open 200 meter dash and finished fourth in 25.72 to qualify for nationals. Ashley Ballard ran in the invite 200 meter dash and represented Shorter well, placing 6th in a time of 25.28.
Decorated Shorter All-American Ashlie Stewartson paced the Lady Hawks in the 400 meters, finishing seventh overall in 58.41. Ayana Walker (58.49) placed ninth, Tia Moreland (1:00.86) finished 19th and Dominique Hoskins (1:01.13) crossed the line in 20th.
In the 600 meter run, Kennisha Holden and Mia Jones both broke a three-year-old school record formerly held by Moreland. Holden ran 1:38.38 to qualify for nationals and finish second overall while Jones narrowly missed out a nationals berth, but finished fourth in a time of 1:38.84.
In the field events, Kennisha's sister, Porsche Holden, went ninth in the long jump with a leap of 17 feet, 5.5 inches. Chelsea Overby enjoyed a record weekend for the Lady Hawks, posting a new personal record in the shot and finishing 28th with a throw of 38 feet, 2.75 inches. She then established Shorter's first record in the weight throw, throwing 39 feet, 3.25 inches.
On the men's side, a relatively small contingent showed extremely well.
Bradley Moon set a personal record of 7.0 seconds in the 60 meter dash to finish 13th. Adika Smith won the open 200 meter dash in a time of 22.14.
The Hawks went 1-2 in the invite 200, as Randy Dameron scored the victory in 48.49 with Malik Fair coming in as runner-up in a time of 49.24. Shorter also went 1-2 in the open 400 meters with Cole Rice taking first in 50.02 and Terence Scruggs finishing second in 50.17.
In the 4x400 meter relay, Shorter's team of Dameron, Scruggs, Rice and Fair placed third and qualified for NAIA nationals in a time of 3:16.74.
Finally, Sadrac Cherfils continued to impress in the jumps, this time bettering his national ranking in the triple jump with a school record leap of 47 feet, 11.75 inches.
Shorter's next events will involve split squads. Half of Shorter's group will travel to Birmingham, Ala., on Wednesday and Thursday, Jan. 25 and 26, for the Birmingham Invitational hosted by the University of Alabama-Birmingham. The other half of the team will return to Bloomington on Friday and Saturday, Jan. 27 and 28, for the Indiana University Relays.
