The Barton Community College track and field teams opened up the 2021 indoor season on Thursday with eight national qualifying performances competing in the Coffeyville Winter Invite held in Coffeyville, Kansas.
Competing mostly outdoors in a rare start to the indoor season, Barton was joined by four other community colleges in the meet hosted by Coffeyville Community College. The Cougars' next action will be inside this coming Saturday in Lubbock, Texas, competing in the Red Raider Invitational at the Sports Performance Center on the campus of Texas Tech University.
The Barton women had five of the eight national qualifiers as Nia Robinson and Ana da Silva each secured two of the bids with Ayesha Nelson grabbing the other.
Robinson won both jump events of her collegiate debut, taking the long jump at 5.46m (17-11) and the triple jump at 11.66m (38-03.25). In the throws, da Silva challenged for a pair of titles, winning the shot put with a heave of 13.55m (44-05.5) but fell short in the weight throw on a runner-up mark of 17.82m (58-05.75). Nelson's national qualifying performance came in the 60m hurdles in a third place time of 8.91.
On the men's side, Fred Moundani punched a pair of event tickets with Fabio Hessling's performance earning a bid.
Moudani had quite the splash in his second collegiate indoor season, winning the shot put with a program sixth best heave of 17.31m (56-09.50) and in competing in just his second time in the weight throw, placed third by surpassing his personal best by twelve feet in marking a 15.63m (51-03.50). Hessling won the event on his fifth throw of the day in marking a 16.38m (53-09.00) spin and toss.