By: by Emily Diekelmann
CLEMSON, S.C. - Fresh off their sweep of the Atlantic Sun Men’s Track and Field Athlete of the Week awards, the men’s squad once again makes the trip north to South Carolina Friday to compete in the JRF Combined Events Invitational at Clemson. The meet marks the halfway point for Kennesaw State’s indoor season, which has already seen a trip to Eastern Illinois and a previous trip to Clemson.
Named in memory of Clemson’s former men's assistant Jarrett Ryan Foster, who coached 12 All-Americans during his time at Clemson, the contest will feature teams from all over the Southeast including conference rival USC Upstate and in-state foes Georgia State and Georgia Tech.
“It looks like it’ll be a pretty large meet with about 20 teams, so we should have great competition,” head track and field coach Andy Eggerth said. “It’s nice that we’ll have the majority of the team there as many of our distance runners open their season. This is an unscored meet so rather than looking at team performance, it’s an opportunity for individuals to improve and show where they’re at. Anjoun Armaly is looking forward to showing what he’s really capable of in the triple jump.”
Seeing their second round of competition at Clemson this season, the men’s team came out successfully, shattering two school records in the process. Jaakko Nieminen, broke the five-year-old 3,000 meters record held by former Owl Scott Burley. Nieminen’s time of 8:31 beat the previous record by 11 seconds.
On the field side, first year Owl Anjoun Armaly would make his presence known setting a new school record in the triple jump, jumping 14.29 meters (46'10.59"). Armaly is his first indoor competition would break the record by two tenths of a meter.
This particular meet has an added feature that makes it unique to most other indoor meets: heptathlon. Brian Graham and Damarcus Henley will be competing in the seven event contest. Featuring four events Friday and three Saturday, the duo will compete in the 60 meter dash, long jump, shot put, high jump, 60 meter high hurdles, 1,000 meter run and finally pole vault.
Over the two day event, Kennesaw State men’s team will participate in events over two days starting Friday at Noon and concluding Saturday.
