In an attempt to improve upon personal marks and further prepare for upcoming indoor events, the Ball State men's track team put forth a solid effort at the Purdue Open last Saturday.
At the non-scored meet, the team took first-place honors in the 4x400 while sophomore Matt Filer won the triple jump at 44-6.
Placing second in the triple jump was freshman Melvin Anderson at 43-9. Anderson was also second in the long jump, with a mark of 21-6 1/4.
"I wanted to do better and thought I could do better, but placing second as a freshman was decent," Anderson said. "I was pretty happy about that. I thought I did well competing with others. It was a big shift from high school to college, but overall it felt pretty good."
Head coach Jermaine Jones was pleased with the performances of both Filer and Anderson.
"For them to both step up the way they did, I was really happy about that," he said. "I need them to be in the competition week in and week out."
The Cardinals took second place in the long jump, triple jump, high jump, pole vault, 3,000 meter, 5,000, 400, 200, 4x400 and the distance-medley relay.
Several of the meet's second-place finishes came from unattached participants, meaning they have no school affiliation and are professional athletes.
Freshmen Kurt Kinkead and Corey Miller took third and fourth in the 60-meter hurdles, respectively. Behind them in fifth was teammate Eric Noe. Kinkead's time of 8.35 was 0.01 behind Purdue's Kern Woods.
"After finishing the preliminaries, (Corey) came over to me and said he felt good about it and said he was really confident about what he was going to do in the finals," Jones said. "Their confidence was pretty high. That says a lot about a team, especially a track team."
Aaron Hoover, Justin Gaulthier, Sam Impellitteri and Steve Samuel finished second, third, fourth and fifth in the 5,000-meter run, respectively. Hoover led the entire race until the final 600 meters, when he was passed by Purdue's Jason Carlson.
"I think for the first meet it was good," Hoover said. "There's definitely a lot of areas we can all improve, but I think coming back from a long break like that, we really came together well, and I think it shows that we can do a lot more."
The Cardinals travel next to the Notre Dame Triangular on Friday, where they will face Notre Dame and Western Michigan.
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