By: by Emily Diekelmann
CLEMSON, S.C. - Completing their final day of competition at the Clemson Invitational, the men’s track and field team had seven top 10 finishes including a first place victory and school record broken in the 3,000 meters. Their first day of competition on Friday saw another school record broken and eight top ten finishes for a total of 15 on the weekend.
“As we expected, this was largely a training competition,” head track and field coach Andy Eggerth said. “We had a hard week of training but it was great to still come out and break some school records after winter break. All of what we are working on now is to set ourselves up to perform well at conference.”
Competing in his first meet since the conclusion of the cross country season, junior Jaakko Nieminen shattered a five year old school record set by Scott Burley in the 3,000 meters. His time of 8:31 beat the previous record by 11 seconds. For Nieminen, it was time for that record to be broken.
“It was definitely nice to kick the indoor season off that way,” Nieminen said. “For a long distance runner, a 3k is always a good indicator of what kind shape you are in at this point of the season. Considering we are still in heavy training mode, I felt my time was surprisingly good. To be honest, I think it was time to break Scott Burley’s five year old school record.”
In their first day at the Clemson Invitational, junior Anjoun Armaly, in his first season with the Owls, broke the previous triple jump record by two tenths of a meter. During today’s events, Armaly finished 13th in the long jump with a distance of 6.05 meters.
“Anjoun is a student of his event,” Eggerth said. “He studies the lead jumpers to improve his technique. He definitely has talent there are just some technique things that can be cleaned up. There is a lot left in there for him and he has been working really hard to improve it.”
Antonio Logan continued his solid performance on Saturday finishing sixth in the 200 meters. On Friday, Logan set his personal record for the 60 meter dash in a time of 6.94, which was good enough for fifth. Running alongside Logan in the 200, teammate Jemir Martinez placed 10th with a time of 23.17 seconds.
On the field side of events, Cameron Zeman placed fourth in the high jump with a top height of two meters. In shot put, Tyler Crow would finish 10th with a distance of 11.77 meters.
The team will get a two week break before once again returning to competition at Clemson in the Clemson Games Jan 28-29 and then on to the Niswonger Invitational Feb 4-5 in Johnson City, Tenn.
Complete Meet Results
