By TODD MOORE
Barton Sports Info
A pair of freshmen made historical impacts Saturday as the Barton Community College men's track and field team competed in the Washburn Rust Buster in Topeka, Kansas.
In the one-day event, Barton had eighteen performances within the top ten placings with seven personal bests while adding nine more entries to the national indoor championship qualifier list.
Headlining the achievements were a pair of freshmen, making their mark within the top ten all-time list of program history.
Clocking a program 7th in last week's 5000m collegiate debut, Theo Leveque was back attacking the record book Saturday clocking a program 10th best 8:38.62 to punch his first national qualifying ticket.
Barton was again solid in the throwing events especially in the shot put as the trio of national qualifiers led the field in a 1-2-3 placing. In what will be a battle between the three all season, Saturday it was freshman Christopher Young on top with a meet record 17.48m (57-04.25) to mark a 7th best program throw. Brandon Lloyd, who punched the program's 5th best mark last week to lead this season's top mark, settled for runner-up at 17.36m (56-11.50) while Christopher Crawford took third at 16.39m (53-09.25).
In addition to Leveque's fifteen trips around the oval, the Cougars also had a successful day on the shorter events with a seven performances within the top five placings.
Getting the running events started was the 3-4-5 60m hurdle finish by a trio of Cougar new qualifiers led by Devory Pinnock's 8.17 clocking ahead of personal best times of Daqwon Wilson's 8.19 and Jalen McGee's 8.25.
In the non-hurdle version of the 60m, Aaron Charles grabbed third place of 96-entrant field with a qualifying 6.78 dash.
Later in the day of the 89-entrant 200m field, Charles led another strong Barton showing by edging out teammate Elijah Mosley by .005 seconds for third place as Charles clocked a 21.552 while Mosley had an official 21.557.
Capping the long day the 4x400m relay team made its debut with a runner-up placing as the tandem of Charles, Mosley, McGee, and Almond Small clocked a nation's current fourth best 3:15.63 time.
Barton's next meet is rapidly approaching as the Cougars head south to Lubbock, Texas, participating in the three-day Texas Tech Open and Multis held January 26-28.