BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Reigning Warhawk of the Week winners Dusan Makevic and Teona Glave both broke school records to headline a huge day for the ULM track & field program that saw numerous personal-records fall at the Vulcan Invite on Saturday.
The event was held at the Birmingham CrossPlex, hosted by Samford University.
Makevic, a sophomore from Sabac, Serbia, broke the previous mark in the 3000m by more than a full second with an 8:18.54 time. He crushed the rest of the field and took first place out of 60 competitors. Makevic’s score was almost six seconds faster than the second place time in the event. He broke the previous school record of 8:20.08 set by Daniel Mutai in 2012.
In the women’s 800m, Glave improved upon her own school record with a time of 2:15.16. A junior from Manchester, Jamaica, Glave topped her previous personal-best of 2:15.22 set in 2012. She beat out 10 other Sun Belt Conference student-athletes in the race.
Junior Isaac Grieder finished the heptathlon in second-place after his strong start on day one, and was first-place among collegiate competitors. He began Saturday with a personal-record and third-place finish in the 60m hurdles at 8.67. Grieder then won the pole vault with a 4.83m leap, another personal-record. He finished the day with a career-high 5108 points in the heptathlon.
Qualifying for the finals in the 60m hurdles, senior Martin Solomon set a personal-record time of 8.25 to finish fourth. It was a step-up from his time in the preliminaries of 8.37.
Junior Hillary Kirwa picked up points for the Warhawks in the mile with an eighth-place time of 4:18.21. He also helped pace Makevic’s record-breaking time in the 3000m. Sophomore Pauline Muiruri shattered her personal-record on the women’s side with a 10:50.44; a huge improvement of her 11:09.81 time at the KMS Invitational.
In the women’s pole vault, freshman Brenda Czermak nearly set a school record after clearing the bar at 3.40m. The school record stands at 3.45m set in 2008. Junior Colleen Butler also registered a season-best in the event at 3.20m.
ULM garnered a top-10 finish from sophomore Nigel Cribbs in the 400m with a season-best time of 48.89. Sophomore Brittany Miller edged her personal-record in the women’s event at 1:00.13, breaking her 1:00.67 mark set at the Texas A&M Invitational.
Senior Jennifer Drew highlighted the Warhawks in throws with a personal-record of 12.11m in the shot put. It bested her previous mark of 11.86m.
More personal-records were cracked in preliminary races as freshman Adriunna Brown shed more than a second off her previous best time in the 60m hurdles with a score of 9.67. On the men’s side, freshman Brandon Banks broke his personal-score by one-tenths of a second at 8.62 in the 60m hurdles. Without the hurdles, both freshman Jeremy Harden and junior Brandon Wilson set personal-records in the 60m with times of 7.04 and 7.11, respectively.
In the final event of the day, the women’s 4x400m team of Miller, Brown and freshmen Alexis Hewitt and Alexis Morton set a season-best time of 3:59.25. It improved upon ULM’s 4:01.21 score at the KMS Invitational. The men tallied a top-10 time of 3:18.13 from Cribbs, Harden, junior Jamel Sams and sophomore Andrew Tate.
The Warhawks will look to duplicate their performance next weekend when they travel to Lubbock, Texas for the Texas Tech Invitational.
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