The Lions track and field team set personal and seasonal bests at the Louisiana Classics in Lafayette, LA. 

Head Coach Sean Brady was proud of his team’s accomplishments in this meet on Friday, Mar. 17 and Saturday, Mar. 18.

“Across the board, it was a really good meet but looking at all the records, I felt that this was just a fantastic meet for us,” said Brady. “When opportunity presents itself and the weather’s good and you have good competition, you expect good performances and that’s exactly what happened at this meet.”

Successes were not limited to the runners as the shot putters also made great progress.

“Ashley Davis threw a freshman record this afternoon,” said Brady. “Marcell Kecskemety, a new transfer student, had a big day in the shot as well. He won the shot followed by Alex Young, our three time All-American and former USA Indoor weight thrower. The javelin throw was really good as well.”

Ashley Riley, a senior sprinter looks forward to seeing how the team takes this strong finish and uses it to progress into the season.

“I feel that with the momentum we got from today, we will do really well in the rest of the season if we just keep that going,” said Riley.

Senior hurdler Dwayne Woodard felt that this meet was a great personal success as he set a career best in the hurdles and moved up to conference rankings.

“The highlight was when I ran a personal record in the 400 hurdles,” said Woodard. “I ran 52:98, which is the fastest time I have ever run in my life.”

Woodard feels that the successes of this meet are a preview of much greater things to come.

“I feel like the team is clicking, and I feel like all we can do now is build more chemistry and get better,” said Woodard. “I’m looking forward to seeing what we can do in the next couple meets.”

Track and field associate coach Corey Mistretta feels these victories foreshadow great things as the season continues.

“It kind of sets everybody up, gets the ball rolling for going on into the season and leading up to conference,” said Mistretta. “That’s still a good way away, but we’re in a good place right now.”

Senior middle-distance runner Andre Colebrook eclipsed the school record of 47.06 by finishing with a time of 46.60 seconds, one of six victories for the Lions during this meet. 

“I feel we had a good meet today,” said Colebrook. “We had a lot of personal records. I set a personal best myself in the 400 meters, but we had a guy right behind me who also set a personal best, Ashley Riley.”

Colebrook feels the team has a great chance in the upcoming season and will achieve another victory in the conferences.

“I feel like we have a strong team going into conference,” said Colebrook. “On the men’s side, we just had Alex come back from the US National Indoors and he won the title, and our 400 runners rank 1-4 in the 400 and the 400 hurdles. I feel like we have a good chance of winning this conference.”

These teams will compete next on Saturday, Mar. 25 at the Hurricane Twilight Meet in Coral Gables, Florida.