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The Ball State men's track team had two members crowned champions and four qualify for the NCAA Regional meet at the Mid-American Conference Championship.
"They did a great job, I couldn't have asked for a better meet," head coach Jermaine Jones said. "They really pressed themselves probably harder than they should have, but that's just the type of group that I have. If they would have relaxed a little more, they probably would have done better."
One of those who was crowned champion was senior Paul Panning who had to battle rain and wind in the pole vault competition.
"It was a battle over the weather, pretty much; it was not against the competition, it was against yourself," Panning said. "More than half the competition couldn't do it."
Ten of the 17 competitors no-heighted in the compitition, including the favored John Russell of Akron. Russell was favored over Panning by about eight inches.
The competition came down to Panning and Dustin Anderson of Western Michigan, with the bar at 16-10 3/4.
"We both knew whoever was going to make that bar was going to be the champion," Panning said.
Panning made the bar and Anderson didn't. Panning tried for the meet record, but fell short. However his mark of 16-11 was good enough for an NCAA Regional qualification.
"Big event people, big athletes they come up big when the weathers bad because that's when they have to show what they're made of and Paul did," Jones said.
Another senior who won first was Andrew Miller who threw a mark of 201-10 in the javelin. The mark was a personal-best for Miller and also qualified him for regionals.
Also finishing in the top ten in the javelin were juniors Tom Green-Whitehead who placed fourth and Ed Beven who placed sixth.
Another impressive performance was that of freshman Kurt Kinkead who finished second in the 400-meter hurdles with a time of 52.05. The mark was good enough to qualify Kinkead for regionals.
"I came in with the mindset that I wanted to win," Kinkead said. "I've been training very hard over the past couple weeks and I just wanted to do the best I can.
"I got beat today, but I had a personal-best, so I'm happy with that."
"Those were probably two of the more impressive things that we saw take place this weekend," Jones said about Kinkead's and Miller's performances.
Junior Kyle Cleaver was the other Cardinal to qualify for regionals after he finished seventh in the hammer throw with a mark of 182-8.
Cleaver also competed in the discus throw where he placed sixth. Sophomore Jeremy Gillingham finished behind Cleaver in eighth place. Gillingham also finished seventh in the shot put with a mark of 52-11.
Junior Ben Daniel finished in second place in the high jump with a mark of 6-8 3/4 and was only one jump away from qualifying for regionals.
"I changed my attitude towards jumping this week," Daniel said. "The whole year I was just taking it too serious and my marks were just going downhill further and further, so I decided I'm going to come out here and have a little fun.
"Although the conditions were bad I just went out and had some fun the last week jumping."
In the 400-meter dash sophomore Jameson Barber finished in third place with a time of 48.19. Barber's personal-best is a 48.18, so even though he didn't qualify for the regional meet, he said after the race that his performance was pretty good for the weather conditions.
In other events, senior Steve Samuel finished tenth in the 3,000-meter steeplechase with a time of 9:43.37. Seniors Aaron Hoover and Sal Impelliterri finished eighth and 11th respectively in the 10,000-meter run with times of 31:39.15 and 32:25.36.
In the 110-meter hurdles freshman Corey Miller finished eighth with a time of 14.88.
In jumps freshman Melvin Anderson finished ninth with a mark of 22-7 3/4 in the long jump and sophomore Matt Filer finished 10th with a mark of 45-3 1/2 in the triple jump.
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