GLVC Championships Results (through Friday)

ROMEOVILLE, Ill. – Thanks to three event wins and 13 scoring efforts during the day, Missouri S&T's men's track & field team holds the lead in the standings after day two of the Great Lakes Valley Conference Outdoor Track & Field Championships at Lewis University.

The Miners gained conference titles Friday from Ezekiel Buck (Elburn, IL/Geneva) in the decathlon, John Karsten (Jefferson City, MO/Blair Oaks HS) in the hammer throw and Bailey Crone (Collinsville, IL/Collinsville) in the triple jump, while getting three scoring performances in two other events late Friday to take the lead in the team standings.

Buck led the decathlon standings after day one, but after dropping back to second place following the discus throw, cleared 15-5 in the pole vault segment to regain and went on to post a school and GLVC record 6,839 points.  He won the title by 404 points over Indianapolis' Trace Oswalt to win the Miners' sixth outdoor multi-event title as a member of the GLVC.

Karsten won the hammer throw with a season-best mark of 197-3, capturing his first and S&T's third GLVC hammer throw title.  His winning mark was 13 feet better than the throw recorded by Indianapolis' Jordan Boyd and was one of two scoring marks for the Miners in the event, as Garrett Friday (New Market, MD/Oakdale HS) finished sixth with a throw of 167-7.

Later in the day, Karsten added a third place finish in the shot put with a throw of 52-5½ and Friday also finished fifth in the shot with a mark of 49-11.

Crone captured his first GLVC title with a seasonal-best leap of 46-7½, becoming the eighth men's triple jump champion in the GLVC.   Crone, who hit his winning mark on his second attempt, was joined in the scoring column by Dane Rodriguez (Barnhart, MO/Windsor), who finished seventh with a mark of 44-6.

The Miners had three of the top five finishers in the pole vault, led by Joseph Nickell (Nixa, MO/Nixa)'s second place performance with a clearance of 15-3.  Nickell cleared the same height as winner Ben Stone from Bellarmine, but Stone had fewer misses in the competition to take first.

The other two Miners among the top five were Buck and Andrew Scherff (St. Charles, MO/Francis Howell North HS), who tied for fourth as they both cleared 14-9.

S&T also got a third place finish from Joe Bindner (St. Peters, MO/Fort Zumwalt East HS) in the 3,000-meter steeplechase in a time of 9:32.93, while Duncan Clark (Kirksville, MO/Kirksville) was sixth in 9:47.78 and Adam Kraus (Tulsa, OK/Thomas Edison Preparatory) was seventh in 9:50.60, with all three times being seasonal bests in the event.

All of those top-eight finishes added up to 73 points for the Miners on the first full day of competition, as the Miners hold a 13.5-point lead over Indianapolis and a 30-point advantage over third place Lewis heading into the final day of the meet on Saturday.

In addition to the scoring performances on Friday, the Miners had three individuals – JR Frisella, Alex Staples (River Forest, IL/Oak Park River Forest) and Tyler Percy (O'Fallon, MO/Fort Zumwalt West) – qualify for Saturday's finals in the 400-meters; Frisella's time of 48.34 seconds was the fastest in the preliminaries.  S&T also gained two championship qualifiers in the 800-meters in Logan Shearer (The Woodlands, TX/Woodlands Christian Academy) and Brandon Religa (Manhattan, KS/Manhattan).