CEDARVILLE, Ohio – Despite having only distance runners competing in the NCCAA Indoor Championships, the MACU Men's Track & Field team represented well in its first indoor championship event as MACU notched 15th out of 18 teams at the Doden Field House on the campus of Cedarville University on Friday and Saturday.
Opening the championships with the 4000-Meter Distance Medley Relay, the team of Connor Gerth, Cameron Pearson, Alexander Pebeahsy and Collin Seely finished in ninth with a time of 11:06.10.
An hour later, Jaden Rodriguez made a massive statement in his first ever NCCAA Indoor Championship race. In the 5000-Meter event, the freshman from Blanchard, Oklahoma won his heat and finished sixth out of 27 runners with a personal record and a program record time of 15:30.40.
Aidan Collins also set a personal best time in the 5000-Meter, as his 15:59.45 allowed the freshman to finish 16th while also setting the second-best 5k time in program history. It also bettered his time by more than 20 seconds after running a 16:19.66 at the Washburn Open on Jan. 31.
Rodriguez was back in-action in the 3000-Meter on Saturday as he finished in the top half of the championship with a solid 11th place time of 8:56.78 for his second-fastest time of the season and the second-best mark in the MACU record book.
Competing in the Mile, Pebeahsy not only notched his own personal record, but set the second-fastest mile time in the MACU record book as his 4:35.45 was good enough to finish 11th out of 20 runners. Pearson turned in 16th place in the race after crossing the line in 4:49.83.
The 800-Meter event was run by Seely and Gerth as Seely set his own personal best time of 2:10.06 to place 16th while Gerth finished right behind in 17th with a 2:12.58
Rounding out the competition for MACU, the 4x800-Meter Relay team of Gerth, Seely, Collins and Rodriguez crossed the finish line in seventh with a program record time of 8:20.08. The mark shattered the previous record set in the NAIA/JUCO Challenge two weeks ago when the Evangels ran an 8:34.20.
Mid-America Christian will now await the start of the outdoor season in a little under a month.
