By: by Emily Diekelmann
JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. - Nearing the home stretch of the indoor season, the Kennesaw State men’s track and field team travels to Johnson City, Tenn. for the Niswonger Invitational Feb. 3-4. Seeing the same facility that will host the Atlantic Sun Indoor Championship in two weeks, the team will be able to use this weekend’s competition to gain an advantage on the rest of the conference.
Named for a charitable organization based out of East Tennessee, the Niswonger Invitational features teams from all over the Southeast and a few familiar faces to Kennesaw State. While the weekend might give them a leg up at the Conference Championship in two weeks, conference rivals USC Upstate, Lispcomb, Campbell and host ETSU will be competing as well.
“The Niswonger Invitational is our largest competition of the indoor season,” head track and field coach Andy Eggerth said. “Being two weeks before the A-Sun championship and hosted at the same facility gives us the opportunity to preview the facility so our athletes know the warm up procedures and what to expect from the facility so they feel confident going in to the championship.”
Last weekend at Clemson, the men saw several new personal records broken including Jemir Martinez, who broke two over the weekend. On Friday, he finished the 60 dash in 6.92 seconds to set his first new records, good enough for fifth overall. Saturday in the 200, Martinez crossed the line in 22.65 seconds to land him in fourth place. Teammate Antonio Logan narrowly missed breaking the school record previously set by himself in the 200, coming in 22.56 seconds, good enough for second place.
Setting a new personal record in the triple jump, Tyler Riberdy would extend his new mark to over a foot past his old record, landing at 14.01 meters. The jump would give a third place finish in the event. In the distance events, Jaakko Nieminen and Ryan Burruss both had personal bests as well. Nieminen, in his first shot at the mile this season, finished the race in 4:17.51 to give him a fourth place victory. Burruss, competing in his first indoor meet, placed third crossing the finish line in 15:19.69.
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here.
