Matt Green
Guest writer
The men and women’s track and field teams traveled to Bloomington, Indiana recently 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.
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 4×400 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.
