March 28-29, 2008

Complete Results

CULLOWHEE, N.C.—Sophomore thrower Matthew Rogers (Eatonton, Ga.) set two new school records and junior Mitch Cooper set a new facility record in the 5,000 to lead the St. Andrews men’s track & field team at the 2008 Western Carolina University Invitational at the Catamount Athletic Complex on Friday and Saturday.

The Knights competed in the primarily NCAA Division I competition that included Western Carolina, The College of Charleston, Wake Forest University, and UNC Asheville.

Cooper won the 5,000-meter run by nine seconds by breaking the old Catamount Athletic Complex facility record of 15:46.05 by 15 seconds with a blazing speed of 15:31.15. Cooper beat 21 other entrants en route to the victory. Sophomore teammate Pedro Tapia Jr. (Sanford, N.C.) followed Cooper in third place with another impressive time of 15:41.10. Freshman Doug Holt (Toms River, N.J.) was the third Knight to finish in the top-10 in the event with a PR time of 16:41.02.

Cooper just missed making it a perfect day with a second-place finish in the 3,000-meter steeplechase. Cooper and Holt both set new PR’s in the steeplechase with times of 9:41.95 and 10:22.87, respectively. Cooper’s runner-up finish was a new school record while finishing just 3 seconds behind the race winner.

Rogers led the Knights throwers, competing in three events. Rogers set new school records in both the discus throw and the hammer throw. Rogers had a top-10 finish in the hammer throw with a PR distance of 24.76-meters while finishing in the upper half of the field in the discus throw with a hurl of 31.75m. Rogers added a second top-10 finish with a heave of 10.51m in the shot put.

Senior Caelan Garner (Rameur, N.C.) rounded out the Knights competition in the throwing events. Garner chucked the javelin for a distance of 39.73m and heaved the shot put for a length of 10.23m.

Freshman Josh Pickett (Asheville, N.C.) and Tapia finished sixth and seventh, respectively, in the 1,500-meter run with times of 4:19.57 and 4:20.21. Sophomore Brad McKee (Kings Mountain, N.C.) also crossed the finish line in the 1,500 at 4:47.06.

Pickett added another top-10 finish in the 800-meter run by clocking in at 2:02.87. McKee followed in at 2:11.63. Pickett had PR times in both the 1,500 and 800 while McKee’s time in the 800 was also a PR.

In the sprint events, senior Brett Aldrich (Dunellen, N.J.) provided a pair of PR’s with times of 12.06 in the 100m dash and 25.02m in the 200m dash. Aldrich’s fast time in the 200 was a new SAPC school record. Junior Charles Phillips (Decatur, Ga.) raced in the 400m dash, recording a time of 53.61.

Phillips and sophomore Cameron Cofield rounded out the Knights competition in a pair of jumping events. In the long jump, Cofield’s distance of 5.80m just edged out Phillips length of 5.76m. In the triple jump, Phillips’ hop, skip, and jump distance of 12.29m was just ahead of Cofield’s total distance of 11.86m.

Sophomore James Lloyd (Lusby, Md.) and senior Patrick Hogan (Denton, N.C.) also competed in the 5,000m run and 3,000m steeplechase. Lloyd had times of 17.38.47 in the 5,000 and 11:05.32 in the steeplechase while Hogan finished in 18:43.69 and 12:01.77.

St. Andrews next competes at the Duke-Asics Invitational (Durham, N.C.) at the Wallace Wade Stadium on Friday and Saturday, April 4-5.