Men's T&F Tackles Multiple Personal Bests on Opening Day of T&F Champs

BETHLEHEM, Pa. – The Goucher College men's track & field posted nine points on the first day of the 2017 Landmark Conference T&F Championships.

With only five student-athletes participating in scoring events on Saturday, the Gophers posted one of their best first-day performances at the Landmark Conference Track & Field Championships, falling only nine points short of their 2016 two-day total (18).

The Gophers saw eight personal bests on the men's side including one school record. They also added two more top-six marks in Goucher history.

How It Happened:

• Sophomore Ryan Floyd (Bel Air, Md) set a new school record in the men's long jump, earning 3^rd place in the Landmark Championships with a distance of 6.82 meters. Andrey Volkov '04, who had owned the record book with a distance of 6.59m, previously held the record. Floyd had flirted with the record over the course of the 2017 season, jumping 6.52m twice.
• Freshman Darby Bauer (Perkiomenville, Pa.) set a personal best in the hammer throw with a toss of 37.20m, which ranks third all-time at Goucher, and earned him 6^th place in the event for the day. He also went on to finish ninth in the discus throw with a distance of 34.21m, only .49m short of his personal best – ranking him sixth all-time with that throw. He also holds the fourth longest throw in school history.
• Floyd also added two ninth-place finishes in the prelims, just barely missing the Sunday finals in the 100m (11.73) and 200m (23.47) dashes.
• Freshman Ogemdi Chukwu (Paris, France) finished seventh in the 100m dash with a time of 11.63, earning him to a berth to the finals heat to be held on Sunday.
• Fellow freshman Jason Vasquez (Staten Island, N.Y.) also PR'ed on the day in the 100m dash with a time of 12.34. He also ran a time of 25.87 in the 200m dash, setting a new personal record and broke his record in the long jump with a distance of 5.50m.
• First-year Jason Higginbotham (Brunswick, Maine) took home a personal best in the 10,000m run with a time of 37:03.37, shaving nearly five seconds off his time.
• Freshman Brandon Julot (Baltimore, Md.) shattered his previous record with a throw of 29.67m in the discus throw. His previous PR was 26.79m.

Up Next:

The Goucher track & field team returns to action tomorrow to wrap up the 2017 season in the second day of the 2017 Landmark Conference Track & Field Championships being held at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pa.