Men's track & field finishes fourth at PAC Indoor Championships
Andrew Woodley, Sports Information Director
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (Feb. 22) - Led by a pair of league titles by sophomore Baboucar Sallah-Mohammed (Arlington, Va./Fishburne Military) and freshman Michael Speedy (Irondale, Ohio/Edison), the Bethany College men's track & field team finished fourth overall at the Presidents' Athletic Conference (PAC) Indoor Championships at the WATTS Training Center.
Sallah-Mohammed won the triple jump with a distance of 13.67 meters (44 feet, 10.25 inches) and added top-five marks in both the long and high jumps. He placed third in the long jump with a distance of 6.75 meters (22 feet, 1.75 inches) and fourth in the high jump after he cleared 1.85 meters (six feet, 0.75 inches).
Speedy was the last jumper to qualify for the finals of the long jump, but he made it count. The Edison graduate grabbed the league-crown with a personal-record mark of 6.83 meters (22 feet, five inches) on his second-to-last jump. The distance also qualifies him for the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Indoor Championships next week.
On the track, junior Byron Mayers (Brownsville, Pa./Brownsville) also qualified for the ECAC Championships. He finished fourth in the 200-meter dash with a time of 22.85 seconds to guarantee a spot in next weeks championships. Mayers also added a fourth-place finish in the 60-meter dash, crossing the tape at 7.18 seconds, a new personal-record in the event.
Senior Marshall Murray (Pittsburgh, Pa./Penn Hills) continued his strong-season in the 800-meter dash. Murray collected second-place overall with a time of one minute, 55.75 seconds. His finish was less a tenth of a second behind the winner, Laurence Jaross of Saint Vincent, who established a new PAC record in the event.
Senior Ed Maxwell (Germantown, Md./Seneca Valley) claimed sixth-place in the 60-meter hurdles with a season-best time of 8.89 seconds, while junior Jordan Castro (Wahiawa, Hawaii/Leilehua) finished sixth overall in the one-mile run with a time of four minutes, 28.40 seconds. Murray, Maxwell, Castro and senior Donald Bierhals (Cabot, Pa./Knoch) combined to smash the previous school-record in the distance medley relay (DMR), crossing the final tape at 10 minutes, 41.43 seconds to take third place in the event.
A pair of throwers finished in the top-10 of their events for the Bison. Senior Jordan Hunkins (Zanesville, Ohio/West Muskingum) took fifth overall in the shot put with a mark of 14.25 meters (44 feet, 0.50 inches), while classmate Mychal Cooper (Los Angeles, Calif./Palisades Charter) finished seventh in the weight throw with a toss of 12.53 meters (41 feet, 1.5 inches).
Sallah-Mohammed, Speedy, Murray, Mayers and Hunkins will continue their indoor seasons next Friday and Saturday, March 2-3 at the ECAC Indoor Championships in New York City at the Fort Washington Armory.