Wichita Standard

Four Falcons Earn All-America Status At Naia Indoor Track & Field National Championships

Four Friends University Falcons put in All-America performances at this past weekend's NAIA Indoor Track & Field National Championships at Dakota State University in Brookings, S.D.

On the Falcons' first day of competition Friday (Mar. 3), the trio of Pablo Sanz-Rillo, Gage Carr and Jadon Davis each recorded All-America finishes in the Men's 3000 Meter Race Walk. Sanz-Rillo (13:22.87) set a new school record and finished third, followed by Carr (13:52.82) in fourth and Davis (14:17.93) rounding out the top five overall.

Logan Horning then ran an 8:30.25 in the Men's 3000 Meter preliminaries to head into the finals as the top qualifier before producing a seventh-place finish (8:26.85) and achieving an All-America honor.

Caroline Giles (5:08.07) narrowly missed qualifying for the finals in the Women's Mile Run, with Jaylen Knight competing in two events (Women's 60 Meter Dash & Women's 200 Meter Dash) and Keiana Newman participating in the Women's 60 Meter Hurdles on Friday.

On the men's side, Blake Balch and Dectrick Edwards were also national qualifiers, with Balch running the 200 Meter Dash and Edwards in the 400 Meter Dash.

The Falcons will now take a week off before beginning the outdoor season on Mar. 17 at the WT Spring Break Open at West Texas A&M University in Canyon, Texas.

Friends track & field head coach Henry Brun on the Falcons' performance at the NAIA Indoor Track & Field National Championship Meet:

"We had a strong weekend at NAIAs and I am happy with how we performed. Our prior experience played a big role in our overall success. Even with the small group on the men's side, we executed very well with four All-Americans and ended up finishing 16th overall – the second best team finish in men's program history. Results aside, it is always good for our top athletes to be at the national meet to get a feel for the environment and to physically see what it takes to be competitive at the national level. I strongly believe the best is yet to come for this group as we transition into the outdoor season. Along with our returning national qualifiers, we had a number of younger athletes narrowly miss out on national qualifying and I know that they are hungry to earn their spot for NAIA Outdoors in late May."  

Original source can be found here.